


I'll be your mirror

by Fleem



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 63,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleem/pseuds/Fleem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early one morning, a creep pushes his way into your flat, ties you up, and holds you hostage. It turns out, not only is he a creep, he's an immortal bloodsucking mass murderer. How in hell would you end up in bed with him? Josie, you have issues. Companion to Something Tells Me</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down but not out

**October 1969**

They're having a party upstairs, that's for certain. Music is blasting ("White Rabbit," maybe?), and raucous laughter filters through the floor, men's voices and women's. I'd heard them all banging up the stairs a few hours ago, trailing snippets of loud but unintelligible conversation. When I peeked outside the door, the stairwell was filled with bluish haze and a hint of floral perfume. It's well after midnight. I would prefer to be asleep.

The ruckus is in Jenna's flat. She moved here only six months ago and has already had several roommates. They seem to come and go almost weekly. Though she's been polite enough when I've seen her, we don't have much in common. She's sort of pretty in a lacquered, heavily pancaked way, with a laugh that carries through the floor, and tends to go for dodgy types: rock musicians with expensive clothes and dirty fingernails, people who leave their sunglasses on indoors. I give them a nod if I pass them on the stairs, but try and avoid eye contact. Roger always seemed fond of Jenna, but then he'd flirt with anyone.

I hate that I'm alone on a Friday night. I'd go and ask them to keep quiet, but I'm embarrassed. If Roger were here, he'd have done it, but rather than letting us sleep at a reasonable hour, he would probably have got us invited in, and we'd never sleep at all. It's just as well that he's not here. I need to get up early for work.

The shouting builds to a crescendo. I wonder if they're having an argument. They're probably just loud drunks. Furniture thumps. Glass breaks. Eventually the noise dies down, and I all I hear is a record playing itself to the end.

Around half-past two, I finally drift off.

* * *

**August**

"I just don't see it, Josie," he says. "I still love you, but I don't see us together. I'm sorry." Roger brushes his wavy blond hair out of his eyes so it frames his face just so. The vertical lines of his corduroy blazer and pinstriped trousers accentuate the impressive length of his legs, crossed languidly at the knees.

Roger is my teacher, my choreographer, my lover, my employer. I trust him with everything I have. I love him as much as I know how.

His light blue eyes are soft with concern, and he reaches for my hand to cover it with his. I'm not sure what he's trying to say. His mouth is turned down mournfully, his brows furrowed in an exaggerated expression of sympathy. Abruptly, his blurry message snaps into focus, and I understand that he's dumping me.

* * *

One day last July, a couple of weeks into rehearsals for the latest show, I came down wrong on a jump, stumbled a bit and heard a distinct snapping sound accompanied by a sharp, crunching pain in my foot. I limped off the floor and raised the foot and iced it, but it was worse the next day, swollen and purple. It was broken, badly.

I was out of the show. It was to run four weeks in London and then travel around Europe for twelve weeks. Today I've graduated from crutches to a walking cast, but it will be a long time - several months - before I'm able to dance again.

* * *

I shift my chair further from his and cross my arms in my lap. He has been seeming more distant lately, more distracted, and I've been seeing much less of him than usual, since he's been spending most of his time in rehearsals. It appears that this was not the only thing keeping Roger busy.

"I'm learning so much from Lydia," he says. "She's so intense. When she gets angry I have to read her so deeply to learn what she wants. It's a new language for me. I'm stretching and changing. I think I need this right now. We're breaking boundaries with this show, so it helps that I can break boundaries in my relationships in the same way. I'm sorry you can't take this journey with us now. You're not that old yet, perhaps someday you can re-join us."

Ugh. I feel like I need a wash.

"I don't think she's right for you," I say, trying to be diplomatic. "You know I care for you more than she ever will."

He shakes his head sadly and says again, "I'm sorry, I just can't see it working out." We part without so much as a handshake. It was never about me. It was all about his ambition. Anything or anyone that doesn't serve it is discarded.

Painfully, I stump home on my walking cast. After making the slow and frustrating climb up the flight of stairs to my flat, I slam the door behind me and pour myself a large drink. I'm crippled, unemployed, and I've just been dumped.

I'm filled with waves of disbelief, shock, and finally, a seething bitterness. Why did I let him become my entire life? To hell with Roger and his Merce Cunningham fetish, his pipe smoking and his artfully tied scarves. To hell with dancing, and travelling, and show business in general. To hell with fair-weather friends who forget all about you as soon as you're not spending fifteen hours a day with them. I have a telly, a cupboard full of tinned food, and the bottle of sherry my grandmother gave me for Christmas. I'm fine. Really.

* * *

A week later, Roger has crept in and taken his things, mumbling sheepish and apologetic tripe as he and his mate bang furniture against walls and chuck assorted items into cardboard boxes. Now an overstuffed chair is gone, leaving an odd expanse of unoccupied carpet between the sofa and the bookshelf. The wallpaper has pale rectangles where his Matisse prints were, and there is a dark circle in the dust on the shelf where his martini shaker once stood. The tea tray on the counter is missing the set of commemorative shot glasses from New York. His Henry Miller novels have left a gap in the books. The tobacco canister and pipe stand are gone, but the walls still reek of stale smoke.

* * *

I haven't been out of my dressing gown since the day Roger broke up with me. While I sit on the lone remaining sofa nursing a drink and gazing at the telly, the newscaster glares at me and says, "What are you even doing here? This isn't supposed to be your story!"

I look back at him in alarm. I haven't been drinking that much.

He leans forward and wags a finger at me. "Yes, I mean you. You're just dragging things out, you know. Now piss off." He waves a hand dismissively, then goes back to reading the football scores. Did that just happen? I'm spending so much time alone that I'm losing touch with reality.

What does it matter? It's true: it's not my story anymore. I'm only a passing mention in someone else's. I should have realized it myself - I was nothing on my own. I was standing in Roger's way. I wonder if he believed any of the things he said to me - about my talent, my intelligence, my looks, my potential - and if any of them were true. He'd given me my new life, and now he's taken it away. It was all him. I am aching and insubstantial, as if my entire body is a phantom limb. There's nothing left of me.

Wait. Stop it.

I close my eyes and try and gather myself. That man on television was just my own insecurity talking. That's all. This is only a phase. In awhile I'll be OK. Once my foot gets better. And I figure out what to do with my life. And I am ready to go back into the world.

For now, I'm going to curl up here and reread my favorite books from when I was a girl. I have The Secret Garden, Winnie the Pooh, Heidi, Pippi Longstocking. If I'm feeling ambitious maybe I'll work my way up to Jane Austen.

* * *

**September**

My foot is taking a long time to heal. Too long. The world is drab and difficult. I am swimming through thick treacle, or smothered in cotton wool. Getting out of bed is a nearly insurmountable task. When I have to go out, I feel like a subterranean creature with a flashing sign above my head: jobless, friendless, loveless. It's a struggle to complete my sentences; I can't find the words. I retreat as quickly as I can to the stifling safety of my burrow.

I cut off all my hair. I stop brushing my teeth. I don't bathe. I don't eat. I sleep for sixteen hours at a stretch, waking only to have a cursory meal of tea and toast, and then I'm so tired I have to retreat to the easy chair and stare indiscriminately at the television for hours on end: news, science, culture, comedy, all the same to me.

I'm not really here.

* * *

At the moment, I am curled up in the armchair wearing my blue dressing gown and reading A Little Princess for probably the fourteenth time. Sara Crewe and poor Becky the scullery maid have just lit the scraps of paper in their hearth for the brief warmth and light, and I am envying Sara's friendship with Becky, and their eventual rescue by the Indian gentleman, when the phone rings. Against my better judgement, I answer it. It's Roger. He and Lydia have mounted a new show, and the previews are next week. He's sure I'll like it. Would I like a house seat? Politely but coldly, I beg off.

After he hangs up, I throw the phone as hard as I can, and it lands, unsatisfyingly, next to the tea table, the receiver dangling from its cord like a suffocated fish. I look down at my foot, still wrapped in a padded walking boot, and want to scream. At least the frustration and anger are a break from the blank grey hopelessness I feel the rest of the time.

* * *

**Late September**

I'm no longer walking like Quasimodo. I have a part-time job at a local ballet school, working with the youngest students, teaching them to turn and bend and jump. For those few hours each week, I put on makeup, do my hair, and do my best impersonation of someone who has it together.

Each morning I trudge to the overheated, brightly-lit dance studio, take off my coat, smile at the gaggle of adorable wide-eyed little girls in pink and black leotards, and tell them class is beginning. For the next two and a half hours, I am nobody but Mademoiselle Josephine, their strict but benevolent instructor. Then I leave the studio, go back to my flat, and dissolve into despair and tedium. And this is an improvement.

* * *

**October**

It is so sodding early. I've had nowhere near enough sleep. I am about to leave for my job at the dance studio. My foot is sore but I've put on my heels anyway. My makeup is done and I'm about to bring in the milk before I lock up and head out.

There are loud footsteps on the stairs. A well-dressed young man is looking out of the window in the hallway. He's holding what's left of my pint of milk. When he sees the door open, he turns, grabs me by the arm, pulls me back into the flat, and slams the door. In an instant, his hand claps over my mouth to prevent me making a sound, and his other hand pins my arms behind my back. I barely have time to register what's happened. My heart nearly stops.

His face is very close to mine. He's no older than I am, maybe younger, with fashionably long unruly dark hair, and hooded, sinister eyes. The hand over my face is cold and pink and rough and smells of washing-up liquid and old cigarette ash.

My mind jangles and the room spins into a blur. His voice is dark and threatening.

"If I take my hand away are you going to scream?"

 


	2. Strange Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Josie has a very bad and very strange day. We already know that Mitchell has had a wild night, a difficult morning, killed a friend, done lots of housework, met some pissed-off ghosts, and is now left high & dry to await Herrick's return.

**BH characters belong to BBC et al. and Toby Whithouse. Thanks for letting us spend more time with them.**

**As always, your thoughts, reactions, suggestions, critiques are gladly welcomed.**

* * *

**May 1969**

We sit on the lawn with a group of kids attending the festival, and pass the pocket-sized brass water pipe round the circle, laughing at the farty gurgling sound it makes as we suck the smoke through it. Roger has arrived in in all his splendor: fringed jacket, bright silk shirt and jeans that leave nothing to the imagination. He's bestowed this little gift upon the group, producing it from his pocket as if by magic. As a sophisticated adult of the world (he's over 30!), the kids view him with not a little awe.

Roger drinks in the looks of them, absorbing their admiration and taking careful note of their outfits: the girls all barefoot and braless in flowing cotton and silk, conscious of everyone's eyes on them; the boys so much plainer in t-shirts and jeans and unkempt hair, but carelessly beautiful in the way 18-year-old boys are. I know this will affect the costuming, and probably casting, in our next show.

A girl sitting opposite us in the circle passes the pipe along, handling it gingerly with her fingertips as if it may bite her. She takes an elaborate drag from her clove cigarette and blows the smoke in my direction. It smells nice. My lips go slightly numb.

"No thank you, Donald, I find it doesn't agree with me," she says. Roger arches his eyebrow at me in a wordless comment on her uptightness. She's quite pretty, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with translucent freckled porcelain skin, giant kohl-lined brown eyes, and hair that falls down her back in dark waves. He's introduced us as "Donald and Vera" so they don't realize we're the next act to go on.

As we walk away from the little group, I say, "I don't like using false names, Roger. It seems so childish."

"Names have power, darling. Of course I'm not going to tell them my real name. I haven't shown them anything interesting. Why would I want them to talk about me?"

* * *

**October**

The early morning light is too dull and grey to cast shadows. Eeverything seems two-dimensional, as if it has been replaced with a paper cutout of itself. I'm not sure what to do about this strange man in my flat. I still feel the imprint of his fingers gripping my arm, his cold hand on my face. He's killed the girls upstairs and is trying to hide from the police. I should be horrorstricken, but other than an uncontrollable twitch in my eyelid, I am oddly unmoved. I must be too frightened even to panic.

I say I need to go to the toilet. Reluctantly he lets me.

Behind the bathroom door, I breathe deeply and attempt to pull myself together. What's wrong with me? Why haven't I raised a fuss, called for help? I haven't even made any noise. In theory, I am angry, and am quite sure this should not be happening. Why doesn't it feel like anything?

The walls in this flat are so thin that they barely muffle the clunking of his boot heels as he paces back and forth outside the bathroom. I bite my lip, hard, take a deep breath, and try and summon up the obligatory sense of self-preservation.

_Are there escape routes? Yes. The front door is still unlocked. What else might help? There is a gaggle of policemen outside, so I should try and get their attention. Wait. Don't be an idiot. If I call to them, he'll hear. Need something else... Aha!_

Using a lipstick from the medicine chest, I write the word HELP on the bathroom window. The message may not be terribly legible through the frosted glass, but it's the best I can do.

Emerging from the bathroom, I keep my expression as guileless as I can, but it's not enough. He notices the lipstick scrawl on the window right away, and his face closes like a fist. His dark brows lower menacingly. "Get in there," he snarls, and shoves me into the sitting room. He's surprisingly strong, and I'm still so numb and detached it doesn't occur to me to resist. He drags me across the room like a ragdoll and ties my hands to the bookshelf. At least he's left it so I have circulation.

This is very uncomfortable. Finally, a tiny sprout of rage takes root.

_He's spoilt the milk! I've ruined one of my best lipsticks! I'm late for work, for God's sake!_

Feeble. I'll have to do better than that.

 _Bloody hell. Get it through your head, Josie. This is serious. This is really happening._ _He could rape me. He could light the place on fire. He could kill me._

_Do I even care? I know I ought to care._

All I can muster is a vague sort of curiousity."Why did you do it?" I ask. "You must have had a motive. No-one kills without a motive. You didn't even know those girls did you?"

"I didn't need to know them." He dashes across the flat , full of nervous energy, now checking the window where the police are keeping watch outside, now slamming the door. "They were in a bar, they were up for a party, and now they're dead. Tomorrow I won't even remember what they look like."

He has very casually, almost nonchalantly, admitted to murdering my neighbors. For no reason at all. It's as if he's had an unpleasant but not particularly interesting day's work. Another day, another load of widgets. It's really creepy.

It's also entirely pointless. Why kill them? They may have been annoying, but they were completely harmless. And really, why would you ever want to kill someone at random? It's an awful lot of trouble to go through for no reason. Is he a hitman, or is this some other twisted business?

"I don't believe you," I tell him. "Even if you said you enjoyed it, it would make more sense."

This stops him short. His face crumples up like a little boy's. He knows he got the answer wrong, and now he's desperate to change the subject. A little too brusquely, he grabs a small framed photo from the mantle, a formal portrait of my parents with an eight-year-old me.

"You're an only child," he mutters, almost to himself.

"Does it make a difference to anything?"

"Not really. I was an only child."

"I'm sure your parents are proud of the way you've turned out."

He says his parents have been dead a long time.

I ask if he killed them too. He is dumbfounded. "Why would I want to kill my own parents?"

Why would he want to kill anyone? "How many people _have_ you killed?"

He looks thoughtful. "Hard to say. More than a hundred, less than a thousand."

I think this is some kind of put-on.

* * *

**A year or two ago**

Roger and I have just seen a terribly disturbing performance piece.

A small Japanese woman in a demure black cardigan knelt onstage and allowed members of the audience, one by one, to take turns cutting the clothing off of her with a pair of scissors. Each person would mount the stage, pick up the scissors, cut her clothes, and ceremonially replace the scissors on the floor in front of her.

They started with her skirt, snipping off palm sized pieces and then reverently setting down the scissors. They soon moved on to her blouse, one sleeve slit from wrist to shoulder, then the other. Roger took a turn, cutting off a section of cardigan near her midriff. He returned to his seat flushed and slightly breathless.

A very forward gentleman clipped all the way through her blouse. I expected him to be finished at that point, but he wasn't. Instead, he proceeded to cut each strap of her bra so they hung down her back and front like untied ribbons, then they too were cut off, then the bra itself, first the cups, then the band across her back. After what seemed like an age, he finally put the scissors down. I did not like that fellow, not at all.

When he was gone, she remained on stage, nearly motionless, shyly holding her hands over her breasts. I saw the goosebumps rising on her bare flesh and shivered in sympathy. The room was not warm.

I thought it might be over then, but the performance went on. Other people gouged the blades perilously across her knickers, trimming the cloth away from the skin, exposing more and more of her. She sat impassively as the tatters fell to the floor at her feet.

At the end, completely nude, she rose and walked out without a word.

I shudder. "She looked so helpless up there, it made me squirm."

"It was her idea," Roger points out. "It was supposed to make people uncomfortable, and it worked, didn't it? Who was in control of that performance? Was it the men with the scissors?"

* * *

**October**

This has got to be some sort of stupid game. The man has just claimed he's a worse serial killer than Jack the Ripper. If he were really an experienced criminal, he'd have had a plausible story at the ready instead of a ludicrous non-explanation. I want the real story.

We talk more, this killer and I, as he paces back and forth, repeatedly looking out the window. What could he possibly be thinking? My questions make him visibly uncomfortable, but to my surprise, he admits that it's easier to kill people if he imagines he's someone else.

"So it's an act," I say. His face darkens.

"You said no more questions." If he doesn't like my questions, why does he keep answering them?

He asks me why I'm "being like this," (I am amazed that _he's_ asking _me_ that) and calls me "a funny little thing," which doesn't sound like what a murderer would say at all. I don't know what I expected. Granted, I have very limited experience with murderers.

I certainly didn't expect a murderer to be so thin-skinned. Trying to be gentle, I say, "I'm not scared of you. Maybe that's why I'm being like this. At least not as scared as I probably should be."

His voice edges upward. "Yeah, you should be terrified."

Where, exactly, does one learn the protocol for being taken hostage? He's the professional here, and clearly, I'm doing this all wrong. I'm not supposed to ask questions. I'm not supposed to tell him my name. Am I supposed to be hysterical? Thrash about? Honestly, I can't work up the enthusiasm. This is very tiring.

"I should be married to David Bowie." Oops, I might have rolled my eyes at him, just a little.

Suddenly he's looming over me, scowling.

"You should be begging for fucking mercy," he says tightly. If this is an act, it's very convincing. There's real menace in his words, unstable tension like a bubble about to burst.

"Is that what they did?" As soon as I say it, I realize it's a mistake, but I really wanted to know. If they begged, I don't think it worked.

He flies off the handle, which gives me a small measure of satisfaction, and tells me, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.

I should, but I can't.

"I still don't understand why you do it."

"It's complicated."

For the record, I think "Why did you do it?" is an extremely simple question. He just really, intensely, completely doesn't want to answer.

His cheeks flush. Vibrating with frustration, he seems about to explode, his hide shredding into a million pieces and littering the flat with the scraps. Perhaps I should be more careful about making him angry.

"I had to kill them, okay? I didn't have a choice!"

Okay. We might be getting somewhere. It makes a sort of sense. If it _had_ been his idea, he'd have been all excited to talk about it, wouldn't he? I wonder who he's working for. The Krays and Richardsons are all in jail, I think.

"That's the first thing you've said that I actually believe. You have to kill them, but you don't really want to."

It's too close to home for him. He's had enough. If I won't shut up on my own, he's going to shut me up. Grimacing, he wraps one of my silk scarves around my mouth and head, gagging me. Alright, I get the message. Then he stalks into the kitchen, probably so I can't keep asking him questions with eye-blinks or something.

I wiggle my hands experimentally. These knots seem quite loose.

* * *

As I sprint down the stairs, there's a policeman on his way up. Help at last! He follows me into the flat.

I point at my captor, who is panicking wildly. His eyes are rolled back in his head like a scared puppy's, the whites showing in a wide ring all the way round. "What took you so long?" he says.

The other fellow isn't really a policeman.

I cry out involuntarily and try and get past him to make a break for it. With brutal efficiency, the man-who-is-not-a-policeman seizes me by the hair and flings me onto the floor. I land in a bruised heap against the wall. A sick feeling creeps over me as I understand, for the first time, that I might not get out of here alive.

I don't see how someone so ordinary could be so frightening. On the street, you'd never look at him twice. If you were asked to give a description of him, you'd scarcely remember anything. His bland, middle-aged face would simply blur and dissolve into the faces of all the other accountants and insurance salesmen and shopkeepers you've ever seen.

However, if there were prizes for sinister smirking, this chap would win them all. "Still using a granny knot, Mitchell? How many times have I told you, use a reef!" His unblinking blue eyes bore into mine, and with a manic smile, he nods toward my captor and sneers, "What's he like?"

The performance over, not-cop's face slams itself shut. The wide false grin contracts to an icy, nearly vacant stare of predatory indifference. It's the expression of some prehistoric creature, something cold-blooded and reptilian.

I'd thought I was going to be rescued, but instead here are two thugs: my young kidnapper and now his extremely nasty boss. Mitchell (aha, his name!) glances for a split second at me sprawled on the floor, and then his gaze returns to not-cop. Mitchell's eyes are wide with an emotion I can't name, somewhere between resentment and dread. He shrinks slightly away from his companion. All his twitchy nervous energy evaporates, replaced with the tense stillness of a caged wild animal. He's absolutely motionless and looks as if he expects a beating.

_"I had to kill them, okay? I didn't have a choice."_

Okay. I see. I finally see. Of course he couldn't tell me. And I don't think we're adversaries at all.

"Take her out, Mitchell," the man says.

Abruptly, Mitchell shakes himself out of his frozen vigilance, pulls me to my feet and somehow, despite my legs' sudden bonelessness, propels me to the bedroom.

* * *

Perhaps a little too forcefully, Mitchell commences lashing me to the bed. He still won't look at me, but something between us has shifted. We both know it.

"Who's your friend?" I ask.

"Herrick. he's like me, only ... more so."

Like him. A killer. I've never needed to think about it before, but it seems obvious now. One murderer might be more ... _murderous_ than another.

I've nothing to lose. One look into Herrick's eyes was enough to make perfectly clear that they mean to kill me. Clammy waves of nausea wash over me as I ask Mitchell to be the one to carry out the deed. His glance flicks away, his mouth tightens, and his shoulders tense.

He doesn't want me to use his name and he doesn't want to hear mine. That's ominous. Roger always said that if someone knows your name then he can tell stories about you. If he doesn't, he's just telling stories; they could be about anyone.

Mitchell is much calmer now, his hands almost gentle. He gets up to leave.

This is my last chance. They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me. Oh mercy.

With Herrick, there's no hope, but Mitchell and I have a history, don't we? And possibly something in common.

"Mitchell, wait," I say. His shoulders sag. He doesn't turn to look at me, but he doesn't leave either. What can I say to him that will make a difference? He's so strange and evasive. Now he mainly seems resigned. _No choice._

We're prisoners in adjoining cells. This is not where either of us wants to be. My life depends on it. You and me, Mitchell. _Not_ you and him.

"I know you're not like him," I say. "You want this to end."

In reply, Mitchell tells me a creepy story about having to feed a hungry monster. Does he mean himself? It needs to kill or else he can't forget... what? Wait, why did he say "the taste on their lips?" What's he doing to them? I don't understand.

Jesus. My guts go all icy and hollow. If I'm following what he's saying, it's not only that his boss requires him do this ghastly job - something else, _something in him_ , compels him to do dreadful things. Still, he denies it's an addiction, and calls it "cowardice." What an odd, odd choice of words.

I ask him if he's ever tried to quit before, and he stares back at me, blank and defeated. Would he like to try again?

He looks at the floor for what seems like an eon. God knows what awful thoughts are going through his mind. A muscle in his jaw twitches and relaxes. Then Mitchell does a surprising thing: he sits down on the bed beside me. He rests his face in his hands and appears to be speaking to the rug.

"I told you it was complicated." His voice echoes against the walls, carrying an edge of frustration that dissolves into a hopeless quaver. He rakes his unruly hair out of his eyes and wraps his hands over his head, as if he's trying to protect himself from an explosion.

"Why?" I wail. "Why is it complicated? Do you have any idea how little sense you are making? Please, please, please make some sense, won't you? At least give me that. You're going to kill me anyway."

He rocks back and forth slightly but doesn't reply. We sit in tense silence for a long time.

He's much bigger than I am. I'm acutely aware of his weight pressing the mattress down and tipping me toward him, of the curtain of dark hair falling over his hands and between his fingers. There are dark crescents under his nails. His white shirt cuffs are flecked with tiny brown dots. His boots are badly scuffed and need polishing. He smells of old cigarette smoke, faint flowery perfume, and something vaguely metallic.

What now? Bound hand and foot to the bedrail, I can't move very much, but I shift as far away from him as I can. What does he want? Is this it? Is it time for him to kill me?

Chilly sweat trickles down the sides of my neck and into the collar of my dress. I thought I might feel warmer with him so near, but I don't. I wish he would hurry up and get on with it. That would be preferable to sitting here any longer, preferable to not knowing. I don't understand anything anymore.

When he finally decides to speak, he doesn't look up.

"The monster - it's not a metaphor. It's real. Herrick and I, we're... we're vampires."

I wasn't expecting that.

I thought this couldn't get any more bonkers, but I was mistaken. He's no run-of-the-mill killer. He's completely deranged. I liked it better when he was just a burglar. Or just a murderer. It seems my standards have dropped.


	3. Overheard

**June, 1969**

It's a warm summer night. Roger and I are hanging around the flat, doing nothing much. I love him beyond measure.

His eyes glitter with mischief. He's beautiful and yielding and warm and and hard. When I release him he grabs me and presses me backward into the wall. I push against him and my hands run down the back of him until neither of us can stand it and we roll to the floor together, laughing.

"Let me try something," he says.

He disappears and reappears with a bottle of Babycham.

"Lie down," he instructs. I do, and he carefully takes the drink and pours it over my navel, leans over, and tries to lick it. It drips messily down my side and hips and onto the floor.

"Nope," he says, "that doesn't really work does it?" We dissolve into gales of laughter. He's bent over me, so I wrap a sticky arm around his waist and pull myself to a sitting position.

"Bad man. You lose."

I tie Roger to the bed, and he begs me to violate him, so I do, repeatedly, any way he asks. I know his body better than I know my own. His fair, freckled skin reddens easily. I caress the length of him, his face, his arms, his back, his feet, it all belongs to me. I am capable of more than I let on. I don't give him what he wants. I make him plead for it. It's my power because he's given it to me. When I decide it's time, I take him again. Our skin is slick with sweat and wine.

Roger is half-reclining in bed, his shoulders against the headboard. He's smoking a cigarette and looking toward the shaded window. His sandy hair is tangled to thatch in the back. We're both feeling worn out and a little let down, the show has closed this week and there's the odd detached sensation of having nowhere to be, at least for the moment. We're filling the void with drinking and sleep and sex and aimless walks and and shopping. Most of our friends are away on summer holiday, and a heavy mid-august torpor has set in.

''What do you want to do Josie?" he says. "I mean, when you don't do this anymore?"

I don't know. I think about it, but I can't imagine doing anything else. I don't want to. I know it can't last forever: people grow older, bodies age and wither, we wear out, we get bored, we want different things.

"I'm liking right now so much." I say. "Let's enjoy now."

"Okay. We'll talk about it later."

* * *

**October**

_It's not a metaphor. We're vampires._

Why would I ever believe that? Sometimes lunatics have to tell themselves stories to make sense of their own compulsions. Not a metaphor? What else could it possibly be but a delusion?

My mind fills with images of Dracula, of Nosferatu, of grotesque gothic caped undead with fangs and claws. They do not resemble this ordinary looking young man with an Irish accent and dark hair tucked behind his ears, sitting beside me in an expensive but somewhat rumpled suit, his knee jiggling nervously, making the bedsprings creak.

Oh, come on. I've had just about enough of this lunacy. I can barely contain my outrage. He's tied my hands and feet to the bedframe so I can't do anything but shrink further away, though I'd really like to box him about the ears and knock some sense into him.

"You're telling me that you killed those girls upstairs to drink their blood?"

He winces and rubs his temples as if he has an awful headache.

"Only killed one of them," he mumbles. "Herrick killed the other. Like you said: No-one kills without a motive." His voice trails off. He must be starting to realize how mental he sounds.

"So are you planning to drink my blood, then?"

He squeezes his eyes shut, and that muscle in his jaw twitches again. There's a pause that's just a bit too long for comfort.

"I don't think so. No."

My God, he's dead serious. This is utter madness.

"Then why are you still here? Why didn't you, I don't know, turn into a bat or something, and fly away?" I point with my chin. "There's the window."

He gives a short laugh. "We can't turn into bats. I wish we could. That would save us loads of trouble."

I'll say it would. And me too. It was worth a try. Who knows what he'll come up with next. Elves? Fairies? At this point, nothing he says would surprise me.

He turns to face me, and meets my eyes.

"Look, I didn't ask to be this way. You have to believe me. We kill because we have to.  _We have to._

"The girls up there, the only thing they did wrong was let us in. It was just bad luck. They didn't do anything to deserve it."

As if that makes any difference at all. Whatever twisted fairy story he's using as an excuse, however deranged he is, I still can't see how anyone could just go about randomly killing people, and behaving as if that were anything like normal.

"Nobody deserves that, Mitchell, whatever the reason."

Gazing at the floor again, he exhales loudly.

"I know."

"Fairy story or not, this needs to stop."

"I know. I know. I know," he murmurs.

I'm not sure if he's talking to me. His voice is far away. He's had this particular discussion before, maybe in his own mind, a horrid reverie.

My own problem requires a more immediate resolution.

"Okay," I speak loudly and slowly, as if to a distraught child. "I'll make it simple for you.

"Do you want to kill me?"

His arms are wrapped tightly around his body as if he's trying to prevent it from bursting, the shoulders pulled in and down in a self-protective huddle. Is he afraid I'll hurt him? When he looks up at me, his face is a picture of abject misery.

"No."

"Then don't."

Another long exhale. He straightens and gathers himself. Rubs his forehead. Pushes his hair back. Another moment, and his face takes on a blank expression, he stands, and heads for the door, all business now.

"I'll do what I can. I have to go."

He closes the door gently, as if I'm asleep and he doesn't want to wake me, leaving behind a faint aroma of stale cigarette smoke and clean dishes.

* * *

The conversation is loud enough to carry through the thin walls. They're talking about me.

"How about that girl?"

"Oh she's cool, she won't say anything."

"Well if you haven't the stomach for it..."

"Herrick, Herrick, I've got it sorted!"

There's a long pause and then Herrick's voice gets louder.

"Have you ever read any Lewis Carroll?" he asks, and then begins to explain that the looking-glass world is "A lot like being a vampire." Now he's telling Mitchell that to have mercy is a weakness, an indulgence for them.

"Them" meaning vampires.

My heart nearly stops. If this vampire thing is a delusion, they both have it. It can't be true. It can't be. I'm losing touch with reality. There has to be an explanation, it must be code for something, or the name of an organization, or specialized jargon.

But Herrick doesn't stop there. He explains that becoming a vampire doesn't change someone's personality, but liberates it. Then he launches into a rant.

"A vampire is the only truly free man. All his darkness, all his excesses, they can run amok."

Sweet Mother of God. This is truly depraved. I take slow, deep breaths to try and calm myself. What does it mean? Things come into focus, the lens gradually adjusts …

_"Didn't need to know them." "More than a hundred, less than a thousand." "Not a metaphor."_

It's all real.

Christ.

Herrick is still talking, teaching, asking leading questions. Socratic method - I remember it from uni.

"D'you remember when we met? That forest in France? D'you remember our deal?"

Mitchell's voice is low and halting. I strain to hear him mutter, "You said... if I let you take me, you'd spare my men."

His men? It was during a war then. Is Mitchell some kind of hero? I don't know what to think.

"Why did I do that? Did you ever wonder?"

He answers a bit too quickly. "No. I haven't." Maybe I'm imagining a submerged anguish in his voice, a tight, controlled bitterness.

It's incomprehensibly sad: _"I was an only child,"_  he'd said. Despite myself, I feel a stab of grief for Mitchell's long-dead parents. Herrick took their son away from them.

Herrick believes that people are in chains, that they envy the vampires' freedom to terrorize, to break hearts. As if that is the only kind of freedom that matters.

"Now, that little scratch of conscience, that's a lie. That's not who you are."

Evil bastard. He is the one telling lies.

Mitchell held me hostage for hours. He had enough time to torture, rape or murder me a dozen times over. I gave him plenty of excuses to do it, too, goaded him into frustration and anger, even asked him to kill me. He chose, again and again, to do no harm.

Then Herrick issues a direct order that nearly makes my heart stop.

"Now. Go and kill that girl."

He's sending Mitchell back to kill me. Mitchell, who said he didn't know what he'd do.

* * *

The door opens. My eyes go wide with horror. There's no escape - all I can do is scream. He's here, but with shiny black eyes like in a nightmare, devoid of expression, lips bared in a snarl revealing lethal looking fangs. This isn't the man who was here before, it's … some other sort of being, otherworldly, indifferent, murderous. If I'd had any remaining doubt about his story, I don't anymore. Everything he's told me was true.

He brings his face closer to mine, and I shake and cry out in fear as those teeth get closer and closer. Now he's going to tear my throat out. I close my eyes as tightly as I can. All I hear is his strange, sibilant breathing.

As he did when he first broke into my flat, he claps a hand over my mouth. Its faint scent of washing-up liquid somehow reminds me that he is the same creature...person... as before. The one who copped to it being an act. Who told me killing was cowardice. Who gave himself over to a monster to spare other people's lives.

I'm not afraid anymore.

His eyes are still eerie black, his face an empty mask. In a voice that's more like a hiss, he whispers into my ear. I must hide and stay hidden until long after I am sure that they are gone.

He unties my hands and helps me into the cupboard, pushing back the hangers and boxes so I can creep behind them, and pulling them back in front of me before shutting the door without a sound. It's pitch black inside. I hear the bedroom door click open and then shut.

I pick my way among dusty hatboxes and old sports equipment and crouch in the the cupboard, too stunned to even think. There's a metallic jingling and some muffled conversation, then, as they are leaving, their voices grow louder.

"Ready, soldier?"

"Yeah."

They both sound so nonchalant, like a couple of blokes going to a cocktail party, not murderers escaping in plain view of the police. The sound of feet on stairs gets further and further away.

I sink to the floor, ignoring the cobwebs, dustballs and scattered mouse droppings, wrap my arms around my knees, and start to shudder uncontrollably. The last of the icy sweat drips between my shoulder blades and down my back, plastering my dress to my skin. Great wracking sobs move through me without making a sound. The flat is very quiet. It's dark by the time I unfold myself and emerge back into the bedroom.

I nearly cut my non-lame foot on a shard of broken china. Mopping up the spilled tea and shattered teacups gives me something to do.

I don't want to be alone. Should I call the police? They apparently think the killers have been apprehended, because all the cars are gone, the street is quiet. What should I tell them?

I ring the police station, then hang up when they answer. Why am I hesitating? Because I don't know what to say.

* * *

It's about 10 at night. I'm lying on my bed fully clothed, trying to read an Enid Blyton story and failing, my eyes just sliding over the words without comprehension. The phone rings, but I figure it's Roger calling to give me one of his condescending "Oh buck up" calls, and I just let it ring. How did you spend your day, dear? Oh, getting taken hostage by a reluctant vampire, how about you? Got a standing ovation, then shagged Lydia again? How lovely for you.

On about the tenth ring, I pick up. It's not Roger, it's my friend James. He and his boyfriend Albert are aspiring visual and performance artists, highly conceptual, often to the point of inscrutability. Sometimes they like to speak in riddles, or wear matching outfits, or spontaneously burst into song. They also take photographs of puppies, which they then enlarge and deface, and paint giant canvases with semi-abstract images that resemble excrement. I think they're hilarious.

James and Albert have taken it upon themselves to look after me since Roger left. In the past couple of months, I've spent many hours sitting on the floor in their tiny flat weeping while James poured me drinks and Albert fed me endless slices of toast with marmalade. They must have saved my life. I'm so glad they live close by.

"I heard there was a murder in your building. Are you okay?" James asks.

"I don't know," I say. "A bit shaken-up maybe. I'm not hurt. And I didn't see anything. "

"Do you want to come stay with us? We'll take all the canvases off the sofa, just for you."

They've done so much for me already, but it would be a huge relief to get away from here, at least for a little while. Such sweet boys.

"That's so thoughtful of you. Thank you so much. That would be wonderful. Just for a few days. I'll even move the canvases myself."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Josie. We'll take care of it. But you'll want to bring fresh sheets."

* * *

I don't want to wear out my welcome, so I stay with James and Albert for several days, then return to the flat and pick back up where I left off.

I go back to my life, teaching little girls in the day, hiding under my afghan at night reading children's literature. The time passes.

It's not so bad. Roger rings me occasionally, and I talk to him in monosyllables and hang up as soon as possible. He wants to know how I am, that he still cares for me but needs to be elsewhere right now. I hang up and vent my frustration at the empty room. Fuck off, Roger.

* * *

Something strange happened to me. It could have been a dream, an hysterical fantasy heightened by exhaustion and minor insanity. I remember there was killing, and there were monsters, and there was a very strange and sad young man who didn't really want to be there, and who let me go. I wonder what happened to him.


	4. Talk to me

**November 1969**

Though it's been several weeks since that day, Mitchell has never really let me alone. He keeps showing up in my dreams.

In one dream, Herrick arrests me and Mitchell bails me out of jail. In another, two bats fly into my bedroom and turn into Herrick and Mitchell. I'm tied to the bed and Mitchell is trying to give me cups of tea but Herrick keeps taking the cups and smashing them on the floor.

I dream Roger and Mitchell are both in my flat. Roger offers Mitchell a hit from the water pipe. Mitchell says no thank you I'd prefer blood. Then Roger asks Mitchell if he's ever done any dancing.

Once I dream that Mitchell and Jenna are over for drinks and they have a screaming row in the kitchen over who has to mop the floor. Jenna kicks Mitchell in the shins and he concedes it's his turn to mop.

Sometimes he appears in the dreams with fangs and strange black shoe-button eyes. I know I should be afraid of him but I'm not, because he's doing something ordinary: smoking a cigarette, reading a newspaper, eating toast. Then Herrick, dressed as a policeman, comes in and arrests him.

My memories have taken on a dreamlike quality, and I'm no longer sure what really happened and what I remember only from the nights I gasp myself awake from the strangeness. When Mitchell said he was a vampire, that had to be another nightmarish bit of fantasy. Like the all-black eyes. Like the wolves I heard howling here in the city. Like the single cigarettes I notice in random places around the flat that aren't there the next time I look.

Lately the dreams have been less frequent, and I'm once again regaining my equilibrium. I still bolt the door if I hear voices in the stairway. I've canceled the milk delivery. I've learned to take tea and coffee black.

Since that day, I've not allowed anyone into the flat. I know it seems weird. James and Albert will stop at the door to pick me up when we go out, or to leave off various well-chosen provisions - takeaway food, or a bottle of nice wine, but I don't invite them in. We spend time at their place, amidst the easels and empty takeaway boxes.

* * *

Roger rings me again. He's about the last person I want to speak to at the moment, but I haven't the energy to tell him to go away.

"Josie, I've been thinking of you. Are you all right?"

"As well as can be expected, thank you."

"I just picked up the paper, and I wanted to let you know, the police say they've caught the killer. He was part of a drug and prostitution ring they've been hunting for months. The case is closed."

"Well, erm, that's good news, I suppose."

"I should say it is. You don't sound terribly relieved about it."

"Oh, no it's quite reassuring."

"Then why don't you sound quite reassured? You really should get a new place, one that isn't a crime scene."

"I know. I just don't have the energy to move. It's not so bad now. It's quiet. They've rented out the empty flat already. Couple of musician blokes. I don't think they have any furniture yet, they're sleeping on the floor."

"Are they loud?"

"Not so far."

"If they bother you, or if anything frightens you, you can stay at our place. Lydia won't mind."

"Thanks. I stayed at James and Albert's for awhile. I think I'll be fine now."

* * *

I'm getting home from work, a long day full of high-pitched whinging, ankle twisting, and imperious mothers demanding extra attention for their little darlings. As I'm walking up the path, I see on the front steps a pretty bunch of roses, wrapped in a red ribbon. I have a pathetic, ridiculous fantasy that they're from Roger, begging me to come back to him, then I rebuke myself for ever thinking anything so soppy.

I can't resist taking a peek. Inside the card, the line beside the great curly printed " _To:_ " is blank. In slanting, uneven scrawl, is written:

_I am so very sorry. Please help me._

_-Mitchell_

Christ _._

Before anyone sees me, I take the flowers and sprint upstairs.

* * *

Once safely inside, I find I've broken out in a sweat. My heart is racing. I drop the flowers on a chair and pour myself a sherry.

The roaring sound in my ears is making it hard to think. Help him? What could I do? What does he want with me? I thought I'd already helped him quit killing:  _he didn't kill me._  Wasn't that enough?

This means he's probably been creeping around my house. He may still be somewhere nearby. What would I do if I saw him? I'm still not entirely sure he's in his right mind. Should I be afraid of him? He didn't hurt me that day.

I ring James and Albert, but they don't pick up. I haven't told them what happened to me in my flat, only that someone has been arrested for the murders. It would be too much to explain, and I'm not sure if they would even believe me. After all, if someone else told me the same thing had happened, I wouldn't believe it for a second.

Here are these flowers. Here is a note. I can't throw them in the bin. I can't put them back outside. I can't look at them. Finally, I leave them in the cupboard.

I check twice to make sure the door is bolted. He's done me the favor of not killing me. That's really it. I'd better go to bed, I've got work in the morning.

* * *

That was a crap night's sleep.

* * *

When I return home today his evening, there's another bunch of flowers. The same note.

_I am so very sorry. Please help me._

_-Mitchell_

I hold my breath and turn around, scanning the area for anyone lurking in the bushes or behind a car or something. I don't see anyone. The flowers go into the cupboard beside the first bunch. He's not going away. He must be on the run, from the law or his employers or god knows what. A fugitive? This can't continue. It's nervewracking. He's going to show himself sooner or later. Who knows what might happen then?

* * *

Another day. I've been home from work for only a few minutes when Albert and James appear at my door. James is tall, bespectacled, and baby-faced, with prematurely receding blond hair. Albert is shorter with dark hair and twinkling blue eyes that carry an everpresent laugh. They invite me to the "premiere" of their latest performance piece. I'm delighted to go.

The performance takes place not far from my house, in front of a laundrette. Through the window are visible several old ladies patiently waiting for their clothes to dry, oblivious to the happening outside. The boys wear smart white suits and sit at a folding table on the pavement. The table is set with cups and saucers and a teapot, but their faces are obscured: they wear brown paper bags on their heads with little holes cut out for the eyes. James puts a portable phonograph on the ground and turns it on. It plays "Tea for Two," slightly scratchily, over and and over, the playback arm resetting itself back at the edge of the 45 as soon as the song ends. They pour each other tea and pretend to drink it, but because they are wearing bags on their heads, it dribbles down the paper and into their laps.

At the end, they both stand, the spilled tea visible all down the fronts of their suits, and Albert ceremoniously pours the remainder of the tea out onto the pavement. When they are finished, without removing their paper bags, they take dignified bows, pack all of the tea dishes into a hamper, fold up the table, pick up the phonograph, and walk off. The audience of bemused passers-by applauds politely but has no idea what to make of them.

James has pronounced the performance "a smashing success." We go back to their flat to celebrate with brandy and takeaway curry, and then I get a taxi home.

* * *

My god. Mitchell is here. He kneels at the steps, sets down yet another bunch of flowers, and turns to go. He freezes when he sees me coming up the path. It's unreal, he's even wearing the same suit. At least I can stop expecting him to leap out of the shadows.

I'm not going to let on how frightened I am.

* * *

There are hollows under his eyes. His face is drawn and pale. He has the haunted expression of a prisoner of war looking out from behind a barbed wire fence.

"Help me," he whispers, his voice cracking in desperation.

I don't know if I should be sorry for him or if I should be furious. He's got an incredible amount of nerve to come back and face me, after what happened, after what he's told me.

"Why should I?"

"Because I can't help myself. "

It's both a candid description of his problem, and a confession. No expectations. No promises. No excuses.

I remember when he sat down beside me and told me what he was. I saw that he wanted to escape from that room every bit as much as I did. He never chose to live that way. When Herrick told him, quite emphatically, to kill me, he didn't do it. He wants the chance to do right.

If a person is drowning, you don't sit and wait for someone else to help the poor fellow. You don't force him to prove he deserves saving. You dive in and pull him to safety.

I take a deep breath and decide to trust him. I think he's astonished I haven't run away screaming.

* * *

"How do you think I can help you? "

He looks at the floor with an expression of pure despair.

"Listen. Please. I'm so lost, Josie. I want you to know me. There's no reason you should want to, but I'm asking you, please. I don't know what I can offer you in return. I can empty the bins and do the washing up. Anything I can give you, it's yours.

"I don't really know what happened. That day, with you, something shook loose. I couldn't wall it off anymore. I realized you were right. I wanted to stop."

He's visibly shivering. I touch his arm.

"Are you frightened?"

"Petrified."

* * *

I understand almost nothing. He's huddled on the sofa, hugging himself tightly as if he wants to be smaller. I put a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down.

He needs to talk. The words spill from him so fast and so urgently I can barely comprehend what he's saying. War. Obligation. Addiction. A vampire society. Slavery. Horror. Tears glisten in his eyelashes, but don't fall.

He says he's seventy-six, but despite his obvious exhaustion, he looks like a young rock star, with arrestingly-shaped eyes that change in the light from green to dark amber and back again, longish dark hair curling at the ends in a fashionably unruly way, and pale unlined skin. My disbelief must be showing, because he suddenly frowns, takes my hand, pulls me over to the bathroom and stands next to me, in front of the mirror.

"Just look," he says. I'm alone in the reflection. I look beside me; he's there. In the mirror, he isn't. There's no way to deny it. He's telling me the truth. He's been telling me the truth all along. I wonder, if vampires are real, what else could be.

He's explained that vampires take care of one another's appearance. Once again I'm overwhelmed with curiosity.

"How do you shave?"

"That's one of my only special powers," he says, with a rueful, dimpled half-smile. "Along with healing very quickly." He looks absolutely radiant when he smiles. It's like he's switching on a floodlight. I'm a bit unnerved.

"W-will you need help if your mates aren't around?"

"Er, I might." The smile fades. He shifts nervously. I've embarrassed him. "Tell me about you."

"I have a quiet life. I go to work, I come home, I like to read and knit and listen to music. I studied world history at Uni. I'm a dancer and I teach dance to children as well, which pays my rent between gigs. I'm between gigs now..."

It's alarming, the way he's staring at me, brows knit, not blinking. Perhaps he's hungry.

"Don't look at me like that please. You're frightening me."

"Oh! Jesus. Sorry."

Trying to defuse the tension, I say, "I'll... I'll go make some tea, sit tight."

That intense look. He didn't mean anything by it. As I fill the kettle, I worry about what I might be getting myself into. He hasn't seen himself in a mirror for decades and has no idea what his face looks like. He'll need me to tell him.

When I come back with the tea, I ask him, "Why did it take so long for you to say you were a...vampire?" The word still sounds ridiculous to me. "When you finally did tell me I thought you were out of your tree."

"I knew you would stop talking to me. I didn't want you to."

"You had an extremely odd way of showing it. I seem to recall you told me quite specifically to shut up, and then you..."

"Sorry. I had to do it. I was at my limit right then. I couldn't bear any more. I was afraid I might hurt you if you kept asking me those questions. You were right, about all of it. I'm not kidding myself - you only wanted to know why we were there, and then for us to go away, that's all. But I couldn't forget the things you said. You had my number. You spoke to me like I was human, and I didn't want to disappoint you."

It's not funny, but I can't help laughing. "Now that's rich. Are you saying you wanted me to like you?"

He hangs his head, shamefaced. "Stupid, isn't it?"

I don't answer.

"What does all this seem like to you?" he asks.

This initially strikes me as a terribly strange question, but on reflection, it makes perfect sense. Here's where I start helping him. What he needs, more than anything, is some perspective.

"From my point of view, you broke into my flat and took me hostage. You told me some unbelievable story about having killed hundreds of people, then an even more ridiculous story about why you were afraid to stop. None of it made sense to me."

"Why did you let me in today? That all had to be hideous for you."

"It was."

"I could have killed you."

"You didn't, Mitchell, you listened to me. Letting you in might be the stupidest thing I've ever done. But I reckon if you were planning to kill me, I'd be dead by now. It must have been important to you, whatever I said, because here you are.

"Also, I  _do_ like you."

Really, "like" is far too simple a word for what I'm feeling about him. I'm intrigued. Resentful. Frustrated. Awestruck. Frightened. Attracted. Nervous as hell. He's beautiful like a wild animal. I can't stop watching him.

I don't tell him I'd heard him talking to Herrick that day, that I know more of his story than he's told me. He came back to face me, admitted he needed help, made no excuses. I don't think many people would be able to do that. After everything he's done, he still has courage and humility. I wonder how he's survived.

"What has your life been like?" I ask.

"Mainly I do what I'm told. Every few nights we go out and ...

"And what?"

"You know."

"Oh you mean kill people?"

"Yeah."

"Do you like it?"

"Like it? It's how we live. It's what we live for. You watch them and try to predict what they'll do. If I meet the postman, it's never just, 'Good morning, looks like rain,' it's 'Good morning,' but I'm thinking about how far away the next dark alley is so I can drag him in there and kill him.

"To be honest, it makes you hate people. They are so easy to fool. A smile and a nod and they think you're their best friend. It's pathetic."

"But you still do it. What do you really say to them? If you plan to kill them."

"As little as possible. Too much conversation makes it all worse."

"Because you might like someone?"

He doesn't answer. There's a full minute during which his expression goes from pained to grief-stricken to bitter to blank. When he speaks again, his voice is halting.

"The first time you watch the light leave someone's eyes, it's horrifying, but it gets easier after that, because you know what's in store, the rush, the satisfaction. When it happens, you lose yourself. It feels like victory. It feels like release. It feels like you are doing what you were meant to do. "

He trails off. I'm appalled but fascinated. He's looking at the tabletop, at the mug of tea, looking anywhere but at me.

"I've done such awful things," he says.

"Do you want to tell me about them? "

"If I do you'll beg me to stop. "

"I won't like it but you can tell me if it will help anything."

"Won't help. Not now. Just know that I haven't been a nice person for a very long time. You're the only person I've talked to like this for years and years. Who's not dead."

"Should I be flattered? Did you kill everyone else?"

He nods miserably.

"It must be very lonely for you."

He's quiet again for a long time.

"I never saw a way out before. None of this is me: the clothes, the petty crime, the cover stories. I don't know if there is a me. I've just been whatever he wanted me to be."

"Really? Because you certainly seem to have a mind of your own. You didn't do what you were told to do. Nobody made you come here, you worked that out for yourself. After everything that happened between us, you looked me in the eye and asked for help. It can't have been easy."

I lean closer to him to meet his eyes, and take his hand. It's so cold. I cover it with both of my hands, trying to warm it. He starts a little at the contact. I don't think he's used to being touched.

"I think you are worth saving," I say.

"Are you sure?" He looks almost incredulous. "You only have to say the word and I'll never bother you again." I don't know what he expected, but I can't send him away. I don't think I've ever met anyone as lonely as he is.

"Listen. I've seen this monster you keep talking about. It is hurting you. It may be bloodthirsty and cruel, but I don't think  _you_ are."

His face softens as the knotted muscles at his jaw and temple relax. Despite the day's growth of beard against his ashen skin, right now he seems very, very young. He looks down at the table, where both of my hands are still wrapped around his. With his free hand he unconsciously pushes a lock of hair out of his eyes and looks back up at me.

"You don't have to be this nice to me. I don't deserve it."

"'Deserve' has nothing to do with it. I'm going to try and help you. Mind you, I've no magical talents. I smoke too much. I'm prone to self-pity. I still read children's books. I fall asleep with the television on. I don't know a thing about the care and feeding of runaway vampires, so we'll have to make things up as we go. Okay?"

* * *

_I am the milkman of human kindness_

_I will leave an extra pint_

-Billy Bragg


	5. Giving it up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Josie has let Mitchell in, what will happen to them? Does Josie have any idea what she's in for?

**Thanks, everyone who's stayed with this story so far. Now that Josie has let Mitchell stay, what will happen to them? Does Josie have any idea what she's in for?**

**As always, I'd love to know your thoughts, concerns, critiques, or just wave hello.**

**These characters are borrowed from BBC, and all the wonderful and talented people involved in creating Being Human. Thanks for letting us spend more time in their world.**

**xx Fleem**

* * *

I've agreed to help him. What happens now? No idea. There are no guidebooks for this. He's completely impossible, a mythical creature.

"More tea?" I ask.

"No thank you."

It's very late and I have to work in the morning. I pick up the mugs and take them back to the kitchen. When I return, he touches my arm.

"You know, there's nothing I can say to thank you enough. I can't even begin to to tell you what this means to me."

"So even you don't know the protocol?"

"No, we're going to have to figure this out for ourselves. " He gives a bemused chuckle and shakes his head. "Protocol? You really are a funny little thing."

"You know, that might have been a nice thing to say to someone back when you were a boy, but I'm not a thing. I'm a person. I would never call you a 'thing'."

For a moment he appears taken aback, then he smiles. "You wouldn't? You may be in the minority, you know."

"It's getting late, and this has been an unbelievable day for both of us," I say. "I'm exhausted. You must be too. I'll make up the sofa for you." I turn to get the linens from the bedroom.

"Josie, wait a minute." Light from the lamp on the bookshelf casts his face into sharp relief, throwing shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and beneath his eyes.

For an instant, his closeness startles me, then there's the scrape of a stubbled cheek against my face. His kisses are tentative and quick. I'm filled with a warm electric hum. After a few seconds, he lets go of me. His brow wrinkles apologetically.

"I'm sorry. I've no right..." he begins.

At this point in my life, I'm supposed to settle down, find a suitable husband, and have babies. Be a sensible adult. Do what's expected of me. Stop dreaming of fairy stories. What kind of life is that?

I interrupt his apology with another kiss. Date, rescue, one-night-stand, death wish; I don't care what it's called. Never mind the sofa.

Mercy. I can't remember how we got into the bedroom. Beneath his clothes, his skin is cool to the touch, but gradually warming from my own heat. Mouth, hands, hips, I pull him to me.

_Come here come here come here. Closer. Yes, there. Like that. How did you know? Oh yes. Oh, Christ, yes. Like this? All right? Oh my. More more more. Here._

_Now. Please. Now. Ohh._

Wait _. What's wrong? Oh my god, your eyes. If this is when it happens, you need to break the habit. You don't want to be like this._

_No Mitchell. No no no no no. Stop it. Remember why you're here. Stay with me._

_Let's do this instead. A kiss. Come back._

_Ah, here you are. Steady, I've got you. Here you are darling. That's it. Oh yes. That's it. Kiss me. There? There. Again. More. How's this? Here too? Mmm. Just like that. That's right. Oh my love. Don't stop. Hold me. I'm here. And so are you. Yes. Oh yes._

_Here we are. We're safe._

We lie on our backs. Only our hands are touching. For awhile we're both speechless. I have an uncertain sense of triumph. Did he stop for me? Am I special or just lucky?

Finally, I say, "If you'd killed me, I'd have been very disappointed."

"I know. Me too."

He must unconsciously gravitate to warmth because he sleeps pressed against me. He doesn't appear to breathe, but shifts around at intervals during the night like anyone else. I'm awake because his feet are unbelievably cold. I'll ask him to keep his socks on next time.

Jesus. I'm thinking about a next time.

* * *

I leave him asleep when I go off to work, and by the time I return in the midafternoon, he has washed every dirty dish in the kitchen, swept all of the floors, made the bed, dusted, taken out the rubbish, emptied all the ashtrays, and is slouched on the sofa smoking a cigarette, drinking tea, and leafing through my copy of _Alice in Wonderland_.

"So this is what that song is about," he says.

"You never read it before?"

"No. I've missed a lot of things, I'm afraid."

* * *

Another morning. Last night, at a crucial moment, I was able to redirect him again. I think it's getting easier. I haven't mentioned socks. We have more pressing things to talk about. He's out of bed, half-dressed, pacing.

"This isn't the sort of help I can expect you to give me. "

"Mitchell, don't patronize me."

"I'm not. I mean it. It's seriously not something you'll want to see. It's been a long time since I've been through anything like this and it wasn't pretty then."

"What happens?"

"I've told you. They come back, all of them. They're so vivid sometimes I think they're real."

"So you hallucinate."

"You could call it that. And I'm afraid I could be very ill. Or I could hurt you."

"You want to do this?"

"It's not a matter of wanting to. It will happen. Unless I -"

"- you kill people or this happens? That's not fair at all, is it?"

He drops his shoulders and looks at the floor.

"Those are the options, yes. It's not fair to put you through this either. "

It hasn't been very long, but I hate the idea of him leaving, with an almost physical sense of loss. Maybe it's selfish of me. I don't know what to do.

"But you knew this would happen. And you came here. You didn't really think this through, did you?" My voice spills over into frustration.

"Josie," he says gently, "When I came here, I didn't really think you'd let me in. I'm sorry."

"Doesn't matter if you're sorry or not, does it? Bastard."

He winces at that. He's getting frustrated too. "Look, I don't know what could happen. I won't be in my right mind. If I leave I may kill someone, but if I stay I could kill you, or I could die." More pacing, back and forth, back and forth, across the room, looking out the window, staring at the floor, back to the doorway, around again.

"If I don't feed I'll get very …unstable... and you shouldn't have to deal with it, so I should go. I'll find someplace safe." He stands still for a second, and faces me. His tone softens. "I can't say when I'll be able to come back, but I will, as soon as I can."

A dry ache builds behind my eyes, reaching deep into my skull. There are no good options. If he leaves, I won't know where he's gone, or how to reach him again. Or if he's hurt anyone. Or if he's okay.

It's up to me what happens next, isn't it?

"Don't leave," I say with as much resolve as I can. "This is someplace safe. Let me help you."

He shakes his head no, but won't look me in the eye.

"It's too much to ask."

This is driving me mad. I'm so frightened for him. I've said I would help, and I will. So far, I've been able to pull him back from the edge. He needs me to do it.

I am not dressed, but I stand in front of him so he can't avoid my eyes. I take his arm to interrupt his agitated circling.

"Look at me. Have you hurt me yet?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"No, of course I don't. But do you have any idea how dangerous this is?"

"I'm beginning to get the idea. "

* * *

"It's going to start very soon. I can feel it." He recoils from something I can't see. "I thought you'd gone," he says to someone across the room.

"Who were you talking to? "

"It was Stephanie. She was just there. I liked her, you know. We were so wasted I didn't remember until I saw them. It was bad.

"And she was so...she wasn't even angry...I was just another bloke who let her down in the end. I saw her after, you know. Her ghost. She didn't know what happened."

"Ghosts are real too?"

"They were angry," he continues. I can't tell if he's heard me. "They wanted to show me how angry they were. It seemed to be enough for them. I don't know how it could have been, but they passed on."

"I don't understand."

"...and I still keep seeing her, but it isn't her, it's her blood, she comes back, she keeps coming back. I'm almost glad to see her."

"Did you even know her?"

He seems surprised. "Not really. A little. She was nice to me."

"All right. I understand why, but I really don't understand how. How can you?"

"If I didn't do it, I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead."

* * *

I watch him spiral down. It starts with a slight tremor in his hands, an absent look when he's hearing voices or seeing things.

"What's going on? What do you see?"

He tells me.

_An alley, the one in Bristol in a block where there are still vacant lots where bombed buildings stood, a vicarage without the church it belonged to. A hotel room with flocked wallpaper, smelling of stale smoke and hairspray. Wiping blood from the faucet taps with the hand towels. Lives compressed to nothing and swallowed._

It's overwhelming. I can't even process it. I don't know what to think.

"Why haven't you killed me? It wouldn't be very hard."

"I couldn't. "

"I really should be scared of you, shouldn't I? I'm still not."

"They're not real to you. But they were real. You do understand, don't you? _They died because of me_."

"I'm trying to put it together, you and what you're saying. It's like my mind just slides away. I know it's true but I still can't believe it."

"Josie Josie Josie. You need to get this, to really get it. You can't ignore what I am, as much as we'd both like to. I'm a predator. "

"You've never hurt me. I don't think you would. "

"I killed Stephanie. You met her, didn't you?" His voice is shaking. "I ripped one of her breasts off with my teeth. I tore her chest open and the blood spurted out like a fountain. I drank it until she was dead. I couldn't stop myself. I didn't even try. "

"That's horrendous. "

"That's my point," he whispers miserably. "Don't think I'm not grateful for your help, because I am. But you have to know who it is you are helping. I'll always be someone who did those things."

None of it should surprise me. He hasn't tried to hide it. I wish I could give him absolution for what he's done. All the forgiveness in the world couldn't fix it.

I sigh. No way out but through. "We can't change what happened, but you can make different choices now."

* * *

I have a twinge of jealousy toward the nonexistent Stephanie, but then he starts to sweat and shake, growing paler and more listless, hallucinating. His eyes widen with fear at whatever he's seeing, whatever is talking to him in the corner is not very happy with him, he seems endlessly contrite and horror-stricken.

He has lucid intervals when he tells me what he's seen. So many people. It doesn't seem possible, but then none of this does. The danger is working its way to the surface. He's warned me over and over. There are purple-brown rings beneath his eyes, so dark they look like like bruises. He's nearly collapsing from exhaustion.

"Get some rest."

"It's no good. I wake up screaming every time."

The only time he makes a sound is when he is asleep, keening with grief, shrieking in fear and pain, thrashing back into awareness, gasping and heaving. My heart hurts for him, but I know he needs this.

I care for him as I would for any sick person, sit by the bedside, keep him warm and clean, help him to the toilet, read to him, let him rest. He grows more and more delirious, and at some point forgets who and where he is, and tries to bite me.

Thank goodness for the practicing we've been doing: when I urgently tell him to stop and snap out of it, he does. This is my responsibility now. I need to take precautions. Nobody is coming to rescue me.

It's vaguely ridiculous to use fashion accesories for this job, but they're all I have. With an assortment of belts, I restrain him as best I can, trying to keep him comfortable. He seems to understand what I'm doing and why, because after I secure one hand, he gives me the other. I do his feet too, to be safe, and curl up at the far end of the bed, blinking back tears.

He's slipping in and out of consciousness, moving spasmodically. His empty black eyes don't register me sobbing at the foot of the bed. I lie with my arms wrapped around his knees as he thrashes and moans. I don't know how much more I can take.

* * *

A break. In the other room, drinking tea trying to calm down before I go back in to try and clean him up. A banging at the door.

"What's all the racket?"

"Nothing to worry about. My friend isn't feeling too well, I'll ask him to keep it down. "

The cries and moans get louder and louder. Maybe he deserves this ordeal, but I don't think I do. I just want him to stop, I want this to be over. I wonder what would happen if he died, would it be a relief? Then I feel guilty for even thinking that.

I want him back, like he was. I try to picture him like that, a brave man facing this horror, in there somewhere. Now he's a virtual stranger, a demented vampire, for Christ's sake. Impossible. Lying in my bed screaming bloody murder. Shh.

* * *

He's looking at me. His eyes are clear. We're about to have the same conversation again, the one where I remind him what he's doing here. It's become a ritual over the past few days.

"Josie, that's you isn't it? "

"Who else would it be?"

"I'm not going to die. I'll get better. I promise."

"When? How long?"

"I don't know. It's all my fault."

_Yes it is._

"No it isn't. You didn't ask for it."

"But I loved it."

"You are what you are."

"But it's not right is it?"

"No it's not, but we are here now. You never get a choice about where you've been, only about where you go next. I'll help you with that one."

"Okay."

I smooth the hair back from his darkly bristled face. His eyes change from black to amber-green and back again.

* * *

He's come to again. He's filthy.

"I need to clean you up okay? Can you hold on long enough for me to do that?"

"I'll try." His eyes are wide with the effort, he bites his lip until it slowly oozes dark purple blood. I carry clean towels and a basin of warm water and slide the soiled sheets out from under him, ease the rubber sheet and the clean bedding back in place. He shivers and gasps until I nestle the hot water bottles back beside him and wrap him in clean covers. I run a comb through his hair, hold a cup for him so he can have a few sips of water, and kiss the top of his head.

When he opens his eyes they are black again and he's gone, he strains against the bonds and howls.

* * *

I retreat to the other room with a bottle of brandy and and turn on the television to drown out the noise. There's a program with a middle-aged man walking on the beach, looking at a flapping, fabric-like ghost in the distance. Abruptly, he turns and addresses me.

"What are you doing? Are you fucking stupid? He's the spawn of the devil. Your worst nightmare."

_Not this again. Just leave me alone._

"No," I say. "He's more like an injured wild animal. He doesn't understand what's going on right now. I'll keep myself safe and do what I can to help him without getting bitten. But I know it's really a person in there."

"Is it? He doesn't even recognize you. He can't see you. All the things he says, they're just part of the script."

The man bares his teeth and claws the air with his fingers in a demonstration, and uses a comical growly voice to say, "Raaaaar! I'm a predator. Top of the food chain. I can't help it. Sorry, thank you, I need you, it's only natural. We're sharks." His voice returns to normal. "Well, people are animals too. You know, predators, prey, all that. It's just nature."

"No. We're not animals."

"Oh but we are, just like all the others, we kill because it's in our nature. We mate because it's in our nature." He makes a rather obscene movement with his pelvis to illustrate his last point.

"But that's not what happened. It was more than that."

"I highly doubt it. Why do you think so?"

"Why? Because we have a choice. It's not just a blind urge to rut. It's not only a compulsion to feed or die. We can rise above instinct, we can meet at a different place. We can choose to be together."

"Is that what you call this? "

"Together? Not right now, no. But I chose this too. You're really obnoxious. Please leave me alone."

I switch off the telly.

I lie down with my brandy at close reach and sob through gritted teeth until I drop off to sleep.

* * *

A lucid Mitchell meets me in my dream. He lies on the sofa with his head in my lap and murmurs half to me, half to himself.

"It all spirals around, back through. The blood remembers it all. It makes me remember, like I'm extracting the last bit of pulp before the life in it runs out. But the memories are never really gone are they? They are me now. I'm all that's left of them. There's not enough pain. I can't feel it all. Not enough fear. There's no point in sorry. There's no point in crying. I'm not here. I've been gone for a very long time. It can't be undone."

His arm reaches for me and wraps around my waist. His clear eyes look up into mine.

"I've died. I can't come back."

* * *

Albert rings me.

"Josie what's happened? Where have you been? Are you all right?"

I'm exhausted and lonely, losing hope, on the verge of insanity, but I say, "I've been quite poorly, with symptoms I'd rather not describe except to say it is a bad idea to be far from a toilet."

If anyone were to see me, I'm sure I look the part.

* * *

There's a knock on the door of the flat. How did anyone get inside? Through the spyhole I see a slightly rumpled, fair-skinned young man in a suit. He carries a battered leather briefcase. His collar is undone and his tie is loosened. When, against my better judgement, I open the door, I think I smell alcohol on his breath.

"Hello, Miss. I'm here in an official capacity. This building has recently changed hands. I represent the new owners. I was just visiting with the tenants upstairs, and thought I might pay you a visit as well while I'm in the neighborhood."

I try to put him off but he somehow works his way inside, and is standing in the entryway, clearly expecting me to invite him in. I'm conscious of the flat's disarray, and worry that it might smell less than clean after all this time. I haven't had much opportunity to do the laundry.

"I've heard there may have been some unusual occurrences here," he says.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"All right, I suppose there's no need to beat around the bush." He sucks on his teeth for a second.

"Vampires," he says. He mouths the syllables in an exaggerated fashion, over-enunciating, as if he thinks I won't recognize the word. "Have you seen any?"

"What? That's ridiculous," I say, trying to ease him back out the door.

"Do you really think that?" His eyes fade to black.

I try to suppress a gasp of shock. The sight of those blackened eyes doesn't unnerve me anymore. Mitchell's have been fixed in that state for more than a week. But an unexpected visit from another vampire unnerves me quite a bit.

"What do you want? Are you here to kill me?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. This place is probably the safest house in London, vampirewise. Your new upstairs neighbors would never draw attention to their home like that. No one wants to foul his own nest."

"Am I the only one in this building with a pulse?"

"There's another flat downstairs from you, isn't there? No vampires in that one.

"Mainly, we're looking for a chap that goes by the name of Herrick. Rather diminutive, blue eyes, light hair, looks about fifty-ish, snappy dresser? The local authorities would like a word with him."

"He was here, but that was several weeks ago. I don't know where he went. He went away, that was good enough for me."

I really want this man out of here.

"If you don't mind, I'm caring for a sick friend at the moment, please excuse me."

"You'll have to forgive me, Miss, but frankly it smells sort of like an undead monkey cage in here. It's concerning. I hope you don't mind if I pay your sick friend a visit." Without asking, he opens the bedroom door.

The bedclothes are draped over Mitchell for modesty but there's no way to hide that his hands are secured to the bed frame. His eyes have been perpetually coal black for the past few days. His skin has taken on a greyish hue. His lips are cracked and dry. He stares into space mumbling feverishly. When I approach him he appears to register that I'm there, but I can't be sure.

The man shakes his head disapprovingly. "You've got to feed this poor fellow, he's starving. You know as well as I that if he just has a little blood he'll be right as rain. Might take a few days for him to recover, but he'll be fine."

"He doesn't want it."

"Of course he does. This is just ...wrong."

"He asked me to help him. "

"I fail to see how this is helping."

Mitchell is stirring, beginning to emerge again from his daze. He blinks a few times, trying to make out what's happening.

"Why don't you ask him yourself? Mitchell?"

"Wait, wait. Did you say _Mitchell_? Good grief. Really? John Mitchell? You do know that's a very dangerous man, don't you? I've heard the stories. I mean, hell, I'm afraid of him. Well, not when he's like that, but normally I would be. Herrick's lost him, has he?"

Vampires tell stories about Mitchell? I don't think I'd like to hear those.

"I'd no idea he was famous. In any case, I'm sure he'd prefer to keep a low profile."

The man leans over the bed for a closer look. A cracked, gleeful smile spreads across his face.

"It really is you. I saw you once, at a meeting. The crowd parted to get out of your way. They were so starstruck they were practically begging for autographs."

Mitchell squints at him.

"Should I know you?"

"Probably not. We've met in passing once, not that you'd remember. You're looking rather poorly, I must say. Listen, I can get you out of here."

Mitchell closes his eyes and turns his face in the other direction.

"Go away."

The young man laughs in a slightly unhinged way, almost a giggle. "Go away? You mean to tell me that you, John Mitchell, are here voluntarily allowing a human to hold you prisoner and deprive you of sustenance? That's insane. You know that's insane, right?"

I need to put a stop to this. He's in no shape to have this discussion.

"Sir, I'm sure he appreciates your concern. You heard him. He doesn't want your assistance, and he's asked you to leave. I'll ask you the same."

"I should think he does need my help. But so long as he's causing us no trouble I'll leave him be. We'd prefer him like this, actually, as he's of no use to Herrick in this defanged condition. You're welcome to keep him as long as you like. I only request that if he kills you, he does it someplace besides here. We don't want any more incidents in this location."

He lets himself out, saying, "I hope to see you alive sometime in the future, Miss, but I don't really expect I will. Good day."

* * *

When I check on Mitchell, he is gazing fixedly at a point on the wall. The muscle in his temple is twitching. He turns to me with an annoyed expression.

"Has he gone?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Good. Worthless little shit."


	6. Drawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mitchell completes the first phase of his rehabilitation, and Josie gets to know him far, far better than she ever thought possible. Obviously all BH characters belong to BBC and everyone involved in creating the show. We really love their stories. Thanks to SunnyFla and Carianna for your feedback and encouragement.

The episodes are getting worse and worse. His eyes cloud over again. He sounds like he's fighting for his life. From what he's told me, that's exactly what's happening: incredibly vivid nightmares in which his own crimes are visited on him. Perhaps they are atonement for what he's done. Their effect is nearly sickening to witness.

He's told me there's a stake in the pocket of his jacket, and I'm to use it if things get too dangerous. I should have it at the ready, just in case. The dark blue suit jacket, which he hasn't worn since the day he got here, hangs innocently on its hook beside my orange coat. In its satiny interior pocket is a brutally sharpened piece of wood nearly the length of my forearm, the point of it stained a rusty dark brown. I try not to think about where or how it might have been used before.

One of the upstairs neighbors comes to the door to complain of the noise again. I don't know what they've heard from that irritating man who visited us, but I know they are vampires. I feel safer with this stake close at hand.

My caller appears to be about thirty years old, dressed in faded, flared blue jeans and t-shirt, with longish wispy hair, a sparse mustache, and a receding hairline. I keep expecting vampires to look scarier. He glances from side to side, examining his fingernails, avoiding my eyes.

"Hi." He's halfway shouting to be heard above the feverish noise. "I live in the flat upstairs, and I'm not sure if I've introduced myself properly. I'm Robbie. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," I say. "I'm Josie." We awkwardly shake hands. Robbie shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot and gazes at the floor. He stammers slightly.

"Erm, I'm not sure how to ask this, and, ah, er, I know Mister Mitchell is currently indisposed, but can you p-p-please try to keep him quiet? Not only is all the noise, er, irritating, but we're trying to play a little music here, and we can't really have that in the b-b-background, you know?"

Vampire musicians. Just when I thought it couldn't get weirder. I can't help but wonder what their music sounds like.

I have to raise my voice too. "I'm very sorry for the disturbance. I'll see what I can do. In any case, it shouldn't much longer." _I hope._

His nose wrinkles slightly. I realize they all can recognize one another by smell, which is something else I'd rather not think about. However, I'm grateful that our visitor seems to have been filled in on what's going on here. I don't think I could bear it if I had to explain.

"Ah, please give my regards to M-m-mister Mitchell. The stories about him are very impressive indeed. But we really need the ruckus to stop. If you need any help, er, taking c-c-care of him, let us know. We'd be glad to assist."

"I'll keep that in mind. If you'll excuse me, I have to go now. Nice meeting you."

Was that a veiled threat, or am I reading too much into it? Robbie seems sincere enough, but somehow I suspect I wouldn't like the kind of help he has on offer. I don't understand what's going on with these people, or what it is about Mitchell, in particular, that frightens them. I wish someone were here who could explain. I've been holed up here for weeks with nothing but the television and a delirious vampire for company. I can't tell the difference between strange and normal anymore.

I shut the door, lock the deadbolt, and fasten the chain. My hands are shaking. I grit my teeth and take a few deep breaths. What can I do? I have to remind myself that I signed up for this - nobody has forced me into it. If I didn't expect it to be this bad, well, Mitchell warned me and I chose it anyway. It's my responsibility to see this through, one way or another.

Cautiously, stake in hand, I approach the bedside. Despite the bindings, Mitchell is flailing about in a desperate attempt to escape from an invisible assailant and literally screaming bloody murder. It's both bestial and heartrending. And it's annoying the neighbors, who very well might be dangerous when annoyed.

Poor thing. He really can't help himself, and he must be in so much pain. I remember stories of how midwives, in the old days, would quiet the cries of women in labor - they'd provide a rag to bite down on during the worst of it.

"Mitchell? Mitchell." I don't know if I can get through to him at all.

He's quiet for a moment, staring back at me blackly, uncomprehending, then his face contorts in pain, and he cries out and writhes as if he's being run through. The sound makes my insides hurt. Rivulets of thin reddish fluid run in gory stripes down his cheeks and disappear into a mask of beard. His mouth is slack and the vicious looking fangs never retract. Nobody's home in there.

I edge closer, waiting. The next time he opens his mouth and draws a gasping breath, before he can let out another agonized wail, I wedge a folded tea towel into his mouth, coming away with a painful laceration down the side of my finger. Now the noise is considerably muffled. Thank goodness my finger isn't bleeding much. Who knows how the scent of blood could affect him now?

My heart is racing, I'm drenched in sweat, and think I might vomit. I can't bear to stay in this room anymore. After I shut the bedroom door behind me, I stand at the kitchen faucet and splash cool water on my face over and over. I rinse my cut finger and wrap it in several plasters, then dry off, and sit, resting at the table with my head down and my eyes closed until the roaring in my ears quiets and my breathing returns to normal.

Blast it. If I'd soaked the tea towel in liquor before I went into the bedroom it would've worked better. Too late now - I'm not going back in there. I fetch the bottle of whiskey, take several great gulps, then collapse onto the couch. At least one of us can be numb.

I wake up on the couch the next morning with a splitting headache. Everything is quiet.

* * *

Mitchell's strength seems to be flagging. He's not making much noise anymore, and seems to be in a perpetual trance, eyes barely open, only stirring and muttering occasionally.

I think it might be safe to leave the flat long enough to wash the soiled linens that have been piling up. A little outing will do me good. The air in here is very close and musty. I've forgotten what it's like to talk to people.

Outside, I breathe in the fresh air and marvel at all the people going about their days as if nothing completely, gobsmackingly, unbelievable were happening behind the doors of their flats. Everything is so normal and mundane. I feel like a foreigner.

I'm at a laundrette a couple of miles away. I don't want to see anyone I know. The condition of these sheets could cause someone to ask worrisome questions. When I load the washing machines, pouring in three times the normal amount of bleach, a balding middle-aged man, who's pulling wet clothes out of the machine beside mine, looks over at my soiled linens, silently purses his lips, and wrinkles his nose in disgust.

"My sister really wanted a natural childbirth at home," I say loudly. "I didn't think she could do it, but she proved me wrong."

* * *

When I return with a nice fragrant stack of folded sheets, the flat seems different.

Mitchell is peacefully, dreamlessly asleep. After arranging the covers over him, I sit at the foot of the bed. He's breathing, like a human, which I don't remember him doing before. The sound is soothing, and so is the slow, regular motion of his chest rising and falling, rising and falling. This must be a good sign.

I stay and watch him for the rest of the morning, dozing off now and then, waking up again in the blissful calm, listening to him breathe.

The fever, or sickness, or bout of madness, whatever I should call it, seems to have broken. Though he's still pale and drawn, his skin has lost its deathly greyish hue. And best of all, his eyes no longer look like portals into outer space. He sees me sitting beside him, and the corners of his eyes and mouth tilt ever so slightly upward.

"Hi."

"Hi." His eyes travel over my face, down my body, back up again to greet me. I feel almost shy. He blinks against the afternoon sun filtering in from behind the window shades, then his gaze sharpens, like a light has been switched on. He gives a shuddering sigh, ending with a cough.

"Josie?"

"Yes it's me."

"How long has it been?"

"Since you first were ill? Almost four weeks."

He lets his head fall backward onto the pillow and stares at the ceiling. "Jesus."

"You said it would be dangerous. I had no idea, none at all." Gingerly, I touch his arm, unsure of what to do. "Are you feeling better now?"

He nods. After several moments, he closes his eyes, bites his lip and exhales several times, shoulders heaving. I realize he's holding back sobs.

"Thank you," he whispers, finally. It is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard anyone say.

_I've got him back. I can barely believe it._ I am ecstatic with relief. My eyes sting.

"You do know how to make a girl feel appreciated."

"You know, I think I'm okay. You can undo these now. Please."

I undo all the straps. To my dismay, but not surprise, they've broken the skin on his wrists and ankles, leaving ugly red welts. He doesn't seem to notice. He rubs his eyes, pushes the hair off of his face, scratches the back of his neck, and stretches as if he's woken from a catnap. For the first time in weeks, he sits up, flexing his arms and legs experimentally, and reaches for me.

In his arms, it's my turn to dissolve into tears.

"I've missed you. Let's not do that ever again, okay?"

* * *

A wash would do him worlds of good. "You look a sight, you know. Go on, a little hot water won't hurt you."

It's nearly an hour before he emerges from the bathroom. I'm stunned at the sight of him. He's in clean street clothes, pullover and jeans, and has used his single magical power, shaving, (I smile, remembering he'd told me that) to reveal a face I barely remember. This charming, attractive, clean-shaven Mitchell is nearly a stranger.

"You've got the sideburns nearly even. That's amazing." I wonder if that's a stupid thing to say. I'm suddenly awkward and tongue-tied.

He closes his eyes and feels them. "This one needs to be a bit shorter, doesn't it?"

"Yes, and not so pointy." Feeling oddly brazen, I take the razor and even it out for him. "There, that's better."

He checks them again. "Yeah, that's better now. Thanks." He's completely unruffled, but for some reason my cheeks are burning. After everything we've been through, after all the times I've bathed him, combed his hair, changed his bedsheets, seen him through filth and horror and delirium, now I'm being bashful.

We both need to recover. I haven't really slept or eaten for weeks. We have breakfast, or maybe it's supper. Mitchell has three plates full of beans on toast! Then it's my turn to get cleaned up. We tidy up the worst of the clutter and rubbish that's accumulated, and finally collapse back into bed. He lies pressed against my back, his face against my hair, arms wrapped around me, holding both hands. His skin warms where it touches me. His breathing slows and deepens. Sleep is more satisfying than any food, any drug, any sex, any fairy story. Even those icy feet don't keep me awake.

* * *

I've taken off the term from work, so I have a few more weeks left before they expect me back. Mitchell helps with the rent. I don't ask where the money comes from.

While we recuperate, I deploy my favorite methods of staving off boredom: sex and reading. _Treasure Island_ is a big hit. Mitchell remembers loving it as a boy, and now he smiles at its descriptions of the streets and pubs of Bristol. We take turns reading it aloud. Mitchell uses a different funny voice for each character. It makes me giggle every time.

When we finish with Stevenson, I offer my favorite, _A Little Princess_ , but he objects, calling it "a bit too girly." Since it's slightly more boyish, we opt for _The Little Prince_ instead, which makes us both rather thoughtful. I love the part at the very beginning.

"How do I know you're not the elephant inside the boa constrictor?" I ask Mitchell.

"I could be that." He smiles. "But really I'm just me." He raise one eyebrow and smiles. "Or maybe I'm a hat."

"You're definitely not a hat."

I'm also fond of the part where the Little Prince asks the author to draw him a sheep, but rejects all his attempts at drawing one, until finally, frustrated, the author simply draws a box, explaining that the sheep is inside. Of course, _this_ sheep is perfect. Sometimes, what you receive depends entirely on what you envision.

Toward the end, there's this:

_"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."_

"You're the fox, aren't you, Mitchell?"

"Let's just read the story."

* * *

During our recovery, we stay in bed so much that Mitchell jokes we must be doing it for world peace.

Each time I'm with him, something happens that I can't explain, a spinning sensation like we're lying on a turntable, along with the feeling of an electric circuit completed, a crackling like the static that follows your finger if you touch the television tube just after it's been shut off. It's not unpleasant, far from it, just out of the ordinary.

We theorize that it's because we've been together so much. It's more than minds. It's more than bodies. I don't know if its chemical or electrical or biological or magical.

Mitchell clarifies. "It's not magic, Josie, there's no such thing. We just don't know how it works."

"But it's because you're a vampire, isn't it?"

"Probably."

"What does that feel like?"

He's been propped up on an elbow facing me, but at this he shifts onto his back, crosses his arms over his chest, and looks fixedly at the ceiling. It's a couple of minutes before he answers. He doesn't look at me as he speaks.

"It's bigger than I am. It always claws at me. It never stops wanting. You saw how angry it was when I didn't feed it. It's retreated for now but won't ever be gone."

"Does it hurt?"

His mouth tightens and the muscle in his temple twitches. "Kiss me," he says. He pulls me toward him so urgently that his fingers bruise my arms. I'm frightened but I trust him. He takes a deep breath and kisses me with his eyes open, breathing in when I breathe out. He sees the question and the fear in my face, and relaxes his grip, but does not let go. I can't hold the gaze any longer. I let my eyes close and cling to him for dear life. His body moves under mine, and behind my eyelids blue sparks trace luminous dizzying paths between us, until I can no longer recognize what I am touching, what I am tasting, what is touching me.

I pull him in, I drink him in. The first taste is sweet like nectar, then I taste the chalk and carbon and ash. He winds around me like roots, burrowing, searching. My bones grind to powder, skin dissolves. I see only black. My hands scrabble for purchase, then let go . I'm following him.

I sink into dense fluid like quicksand or tar, freezing and burning, inky and sweet. I give myself over to it; I no longer want volition, I want only to be subsumed. It wraps around me until I am immobilized, engulfed like an insect in a drop of pitch. A whirling current leaches the heat from my body and then pulls me under.

I'm sucked in as through a tiny opening, liquefied and amorphous, muscles crushed to paste. I'm poured back into a vessel shaped like a body, but hollow. Searing pain , like being scalded everywhere at once, defines the border where I end and the world begins. How can something hurt this much?

There are gaps in the dark. Glimpses of a luminous treasure just out of reach. The sensation of floating. Hissing whispers. Gradually I float to the surface, and emerge, burnished hard and impervious. Now, I am beyond the soft rot of living things: sloughing skin, infection, shit, slime. No more. I've transcended it. The only purpose of all this oozing chaos: to distill life into a form I can consume.

I am cold, blank, and still. Red clouds fill the room as I scan for prey. I hunt by scent and body temperature and by the sounds and vibrations my quarry makes when it moves.

Somehow, Mitchell is impossibly warm, and I imagine his heart beating, like a song, with a lovely inviting delicious rhythm. He smells like chocolate and wine and meat. I'm ravenous. I want to drink him until he's gone. I push closer. With a gasp of shock, he pushes me away. His eyes are solid black. He clasps my hands so tightly I feel his tendons move against the bones.

"We need to stop this. Now."

The spell is broken. With a sickening lurch, I am banished, and life's endless weakness and decay come rushing in, foul and excremental. The predator dissolves into mist, and the loss is devastating.

"Josie? Are you all right?"

"I don't know."

Once again, I'm the one with the pulse. It sounds in my ears as I sob raggedly with my head on his shoulder. He strokes my hair and holds me close while I rock back and forth in agitation.

As my blood begins to circulate again, there's a prickling sensation in my fingers, my toes, my lips. All my joints hurt. My injured foot feels like it's been re-broken.

"You mustn't stay there Josie. All I could do was let you see it."

"How can anyone stand it? How can you?"

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I shouldn't have done that. I wanted you to know, and didn't know how else to tell you."

"No," I say, wiping the tears, the snot, the blood from my face. "I'm glad you did. Thank you."

I'm awestruck. I had no idea. To be irreversibly bound to that, and still to maintain something like humanity, like compassion, is an act of tremendous will. How strong he must be.

I see you now, my love. This could break anyone, yet here you are.

* * *

The hunger is still fighting to keep its hold on him. Some nights I'll see him lose focus, stop breathing, and gaze off into the distance, and when he looks back at me his eyes have gone black. Usually he can shake it off, but sometimes he disappears muttering into the other room, hip flask in hand, emerging after an hour or two when he's gathered his wits about him. I hate when he does that.

It's been one of those nights. I've fallen asleep on the couch with the television on. I don't know what time it is but all the stations have signed off for the night.

On the snowy screen, a face resolves. A woman, around my age.

"Who are you? How did you get in there?"

"I'm Stephanie."

Good grief. She's a ghost. I don't know how it's possible that I'm seeing one, but I am.

"I thought you'd passed over."

"I did."

"He said you were only an hallucination."

She disappears from the screen and reappears in the room. She's very thin and brittle looking, a bit shorter than me, with bleached blonde hair. Her roots are showing and she has on rather too much makeup. I don't think that green eyeshadow suits her.

"Sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't," she says. "The barrier isn't exactly solid. We can come back if it's decided there's a good reason."

Ugh. I feel bad for her, but what Mitchell is doing with me is none of her business.

"And is there?" I ask. "You're not here to give me makeup tips, are you?"

She perches in the easy chair, picks up a cigarette that's been sitting on the end table, and puts it in her mouth.

"Er, would you like a light? I ask."

"No thanks, can't really smoke right. Something about inhaling. Terribly frustrating. Smells nice, though. Maybe you could have one? Then I can pretend I'm smoking it."

Obligingly, I light one for myself. I blow the smoke in her direction as she smiles appreciatively.

After spending half a minute _experiencing_ the smoke, she begins. "So here's what I'm supposed to tell you: They've been sending you messages but you're ignoring them. They think you're interfering. Upsetting the natural order, whatever that means." She shrugs.

"When Mitchell tells you he doesn't deserve what you've done for him, he's right. Look. This is what he did to me."

She changes from a smiling blond girl in a flowing white blouse and flared jeans into a nude, horribly mangled and bloody corpse. My face goes cold. I can see where her flesh has been torn down to the bone. The entire front of her body has been ripped open. There's a deep gash in her neck, as wide as my hand. I've never seen anything so appalling. I'm going to be sick.

She reappears in the bathroom and rubs my back lightly as I heave into the toilet. She really is- _was_ a sweet girl. When I look back at her, to my tremendous relief, she's transformed herself back into a whole, undamaged person.

_I shouldn't be shocked. I shouldn't be shocked._ I already knew.

"He's told me about you," I say, "and what he... what happened to you. I have to say, it looks even worse than it sounds."

Her voice is small and faraway.

"Well it was and it wasn't. He really was sweet, sort of shy, very charming. When we...when he... I let him. I didn't realize when it was happening. I still don't know why. It turned into something else. I can't explain it."

I nod.

"I get it, I really do. It's different with him. Do you think they're always like that?"

"Will they always give you a mindfuck along with the other kind? I've no idea, sorry. Limited experience in that area."

"That's a sort of hostile description, isn't it?"

"No it's not. Just honest. But sometimes I hate him. Other times I think, Freddie could've killed me. I could've ODed. I could've been hit by a bus."

She goes thoughtful. "Hmmm. Mitchell or bus? Which would you pick? I think he's probably better than a bus, but not as good as an OD..."

I interrupt. "He really did like you, you know. He told me that. More than once." I catch myself before saying anything too sarky. No need to be jealous of this poor girl.

She sighs. "Yeah. Lucky me. Doesn't make me any less dead. Hey, this could happen to you, too. If you let him stay, it probably will. I think you get the picture."

"Believe me, I get the full picture. I know what he's done. I even sort of understand why. The only way to stop him is to accept everything that he is. He can't change his past, but now he's got me watching out for him."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because the alternative is too awful to imagine. And because I love him."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, do you? Please. Spare me the romantic palaver, it's depressing and faintly nauseating." She touches her belly and bends over slightly, as if she might actually vomit. "Hm. I didn't even know ghosts could feel nausea...must be contagious. I'm sorry, but watching the two of you together makes me come over all jealous and bitchy. I'd better go before you start to hate me."

The ghost is fading, becoming more and more transparent. Her voice sounds like it's coming from a great distance. "I wish you the best of luck. Honestly. Just be careful. Your little project is not at all popular with the higher-ups. They don't plan on Mitchell staying good. That's all I'm saying. Take it easy, Josie. See you around."

She blinks out of sight, but returns a second later.

"Oh, and you really should get rid of that coat. It makes you look like a pumpkin." And then she's really gone.

Whenever I watch the telly by myself, Stephanie's gruesome image appears onscreen, maybe with her arm around Paul Rogers on Top of the Pops, or peeking over Lyndon Johnson's shoulder and waving on the international news, or commentating on football games, or being eaten by predators in nature documentaries. I don't tell Mitchell. He never sees her.


	7. Emerge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our couple is tentatively trying to figure things out.

_"What just happened?"_

 

 

 

_" I...I let you drink from me, sort of. You're not dead, so it's only temporary."_

_"Did you know it would be like that? Had you ever done that before? "_

_"Not exactly."_

_"You aren't bleeding are you?"_

_"No, I'm okay."_

_I've some idea of what he's been through. Now I feel sick. It's hard to look at him._

* * *

Becoming a vampire is being born and dying in entirely the wrong order. It feels like being garrotted, drowned in boiling tar, and crushed to death, all at the same time. And then the agony begins. You realize there's no way out.

* * *

We've been venturing out more and more, going to the shops, to the pub, to the park. Mitchell likes to take walks at night through neighborhood streets, listening to the sounds of cars and doors and the low murmur of other people going about their business, doing ordinary things. Watching from the outside is starting to make him restless. He wants to participate.

I learn there are things vampires do not take for granted: Ticklish knees. Finishing the crossword puzzle. Eyebrow plucking. Tilting the pinball machine. Backrubs. Licking the spoon after the cake goes in the oven. Waking up beside someone else who may or may not have ridiculous hair, but you're not telling.

* * *

I am watching the end of a television interview with Martha Graham, so Mitchell has gone out for cigarettes and orange juice. Ten minutes later, laughter echoes from the stairwell.

The door bursts open, and Mitchell comes in, followed by the wonderful, miraculous, completely unexpected James. Mitchell says, "Just as I got back from the shop, your friend dropped by. It's great to finally meet him." He turns to James. "I've heard so much about you. All good things." He grins broadly at me.

"And it's wonderful to meet you too," says James, arching an eyebrow. I don't know how I'm going to explain my long absence. Still, just hearing the sound of his voice makes me happy. I throw my arms around James, nearly knocking him over. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed my friends.

"Hello, Josie. You've got your strength back, I see." James straightens his necktie. There might be a tiny smudge of lipstick on his cheek. "How's your health? We were concerned after you'd told us you were poorly. It's been weeks since then, and we were getting worried. You do look a bit thin. Are you fully recovered?"

"I'm much better, thanks. Really didn't mean to be out of touch for so long. Time just got away from me. I've been a bit distracted." I fidget with the hem of my dress where there's a loose thread.

"Evidently. Why didn't you say there was a new man in your life? You could've told us."

Mitchell and I exchange a look. "The circumstances were … unusual," I finally say.

"I see," says James uncertainly.

"Things have calmed down quite a bit. And I'm so glad to see you."

He smiles. "I'm glad you're all right. Your new friend is quite charming. The two of you should come round our place sometime soon. We can have drinks and catch up."

"We'd love that," I say.

"We really would," Mitchell says.

* * *

James has gone home, but not before extracting a promise that we will visit with him and Albert sometime in the next week.

I wipe sweat from my forehead. Glad as I was to see James, I'm incredibly tense now. "God, I hated that. What should we say when people ask how we met?"

"Hm. It's quite the fairy tale, isn't it? You know, murder, kidnapping, drugs, monsters. The usual."

"Very funny."

* * *

Albert greets us at the door with a smile deepening the lines at the corners of his bright blue eyes. His short dark hair, shot through with bits of grey, is mussed and pointing in all directions. He's wearing a ribbed green turtleneck daubed with numerous shades of paint, and khaki trousers to match.

"Come in, come in, come in!"

I make introductions. Mitchell is standing beside me with a frozen expression. He towers probably six inches over Albert, who notices his discomfort, and puts a hand on his arm.

"Don't be nervous. We're not judgmental, we're interested. Josie is obviously fond of you, and you seem to have appeared out of nowhere. We want to hear more. Would you like a drink?"

"Love one."

Inside the flat, half the sofa is covered in assorted lengths of wooden stretcher stock in the process of being assembled into canvases ready for painting. Mitchell has cleared out a space for himself on the other half. I'm perched on a footstool beside a stack of several large paintings that lean precariously against the wall. James sits crosslegged on a pillow on the floor. An oversized white smock covers up his customary jacket and tie. He is flushed pink all the way to the top of his nearly bald head, as if he's been exerting himself. He pushes up his wire-rimmed spectacles and says hello. Albert busies himself fetching drinks.

"So, what brought you to London?" asks James.

"I was here on business," says Mitchell, "but I left my job soon after. I needed a change."

"And how did you two meet?"

"My neighbor was having a party," I say. "We bumped into each other in the hallway. Mitchell was waiting for his lift home, and I let him wait in my flat. We got talking."

"Josie is quite the conversationalist," says Mitchell, with just a trace of a smile.

"He's very persistent."

"I am when I find something good."

* * *

"There are so many of these. They look interesting." Mitchell says, flipping through the stack of canvases.

"It's a series we're working on. Things we've seen on the street. We take photographs and then paint from them."

"What is this a picture of?" The canvas he's looking at is about six feet wide and covered in multicolored blotches that form a vaguely oval pattern.

"It's shit. Dog shit, if I recall correctly. I paint from life, but I make the colors go however I like."

Mitchell bursts out laughing. "You're joking!"

"I'm not. Well, not about that. I think it looks nice that color, don't you?"

"I never really thought about it. But I will now."

"How about this one?" The picture is mostly white, but with a series of sweeping black brush strokes of different sizes, punctuated with grey squares and dots. A tiny swathe of blue traces along the biggest horizontal line that runs nearly the full length of the canvas. To me, the painting resembles a crowd of people queueing at the post office, the grey dots resolving themselves into faces atop black brushstroke bodies.

"That one is nothing in particular. It may have started with a pile of newspapers, but I can't remember. I'm more interested in what  _you_ see in it."

"It looks like a hawk catching a rat," says Mitchell, squinting a bit.

James' expression is neutral. "All right," he says.

I'm dumbfounded. How could we see such different things? After awhile, I see what he means. The white area is nearly bird-shaped, with the large horizontal acting as the horizon, one of the squares being swept up in the bird's talons. The dots and brushstrokes become a meadow on the ground below.

"Do you ever sell these paintings?" asks Mitchell. "I bet a lot of people would love to buy them."

"We're working on it," says Albert.

* * *

James rings me. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he starts in with the questions.

"Your new friend. Is he the jealous sort?"

"No, why would you say that?"

"We didn't hear from you for weeks, and it turned out you'd been shacked up with him all that time. You have to admit, it seems a bit dodgy - he shows up and you disappear. Does he treat you well?"

"Mitchell's sort of shy, but he's good, and he'd never hurt me. I feel safe with him. He even does the washing up without being asked. He's not perfect, but who is?"

"Josie, what aren't you telling me?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're being all...  _squiggly_." In my mind, I can see his hands illustrating the squiggle. "Like you're making excuses for him."

A deep breath. "Well, okay." Can I explain it without lying? Here goes. "When we first met, he had a bit of a...a drinking problem, but now he's got it under control. It was rough going at the beginning but we're all sorted now."

"I was worried it might be something like that." There's no mistaking the disappointment in his voice. James pauses, but I don't volunteer any more. "He seems awfully nice, and it's clear he thinks very highly of you. Just be sure not to lose yourself.  _You_ should be your most important project. You're too wonderful to wind up consumed with someone else's problems."

"Don't worry, I can look after myself. I have my limits, and he understands that."

"Glad to hear it. There is something intriguing about him, isn't there? He's quite pleasing to the eye. And he seems thoughtful and open minded. Albert and I, we do like him. But we love you. We don't mean to pry, we just want to you be careful."

"It's fine, you're my friends, and I know you're looking out for me. I'll be all right. Come see us sometime. I think we're ready for company."

* * *

"Mitchell, have you ever had a girlfriend?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Since you became a vampire?"

"No, not really."

_Then what is this?_

"Do vampires... erm... date?"

"Of course they do."

"But not you? Why not?"

"Well, with a human, I couldn't... wasn't possible."

"How about with a vampire?"

"Dunno, maybe I never met the right one."

"What happened with the girl? The human one."

"I went to war. I didn't come back. It happens."

Perhaps, somewhere in Ireland, there is an old woman who remembers him, the way he bites his lip when he's concentrating, how he's ticklish on the insides of his elbows, the little dark freckle on his forehead. I suppress a twinge of envy toward this imaginary old lady for having known him before he was... damaged, first by the inhuman horror of the Great War, and again by vampires. It was so long ago. How can it be possible that he's actually here, on my couch, talking to me like it's no big deal?

"Come here, would you?" I press against him and his arms wrap around me. He feels solid and real enough: bristly face against my cheek, hands that smell of tobacco and soap. He's returned from the war fifty-odd years too late. He spent all those years an unloved, fearsome thing. How could he possibly be someone's boyfriend?

Leaning against him, my body is tense and awkward. There's no place to put my arms. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"I'm okay, just thinking. What are we to each other? And why couldn't you be with anyone before now? "

"Listen. This started before I met you, but I can't do it alone."

"So I'm nobody special, just a way for you to get out, is that it? Was this all a convenient accident for you?"

"Come on, you know it's more than that. This was your choice as much as it was mine. You didn't have to help me when I came back, and you certainly didn't have to take me to bed. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. And you know I think you're fucking brilliant. You always seem to know what I need to hear. You won't let me be the monster. You expect me to be human and so I am."

A defensive tone is creeping into his voice. I move over to put a bit of space between us, but he turns to face me, leaning forward, his eyebrows lowering into a threatening look. "I can only assume there's something in this for you, or you would've thrown me out a long time ago. Why haven't you? Every time I do something that might frighten anyone, you pull me closer. Why is that? A person might think you've a death wish. Do you?"

Each question is like being poked with a pin. It's hard to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

"No. I'm still not afraid of you. Every time I see you act that way, I'm  _less_  afraid."

"It'll never be gone. It's just below the surface, always."

I've some idea what he means. A vampire's black, sucking emptiness is like nothing else I've ever felt. When I put my head on his chest, it sometimes sounds like a gale hissing across a deep cavern. But  _this_ vampire is sitting here in my cluttered flat, with his bare feet on the coffee table beside a cup half-full of cold tea. In the corner of the bedroom, there's a basket of vampire's underwear and socks waiting to go to the laundry. I've been trying to convince the vampire, unsuccessfully so far, to let his hair go curly. The vampire likes his eggs either boiled five minutes or scrambled, but not too dry, with toast cut in triangles.

"You've come through so much, and you're still here. Of all the things you could have done, you chose this. And you keep choosing it, every day. That's remarkable."

"It's necessary."

Christ, but I'm getting irritated. "Stop it. I took care of you because you were ill, but I'm not your Florence Nightingale, I'm your girlfriend, right? Right?"  _Why did I even bring this up?_ "Now I want a cigarette, but not here, because I can't reach the other ashtray from here and the one in the kitchen is better anyway. I don't know why."

With my composure about to crumble, I walk out, leaving him alone on the couch. I smoke standing up in the kitchen, stubbing the cigarette out in the good ashtray, the bright orange melamine one.

There's a loud  _clunk_ and a clatter from the other room as a piece of furniture falls over, or is kicked. I hear muttered cursing and shards of broken china scraping against the floor. We're running out of teacups.

A few minutes later, Mitchell pulls a chair up to the little table by the window. "What just happened with you?" he says. "What did I do?"

"You were acting like an arsehole. You've been here three months already. Do you even see me? I need you to see  _me_. Not a girl who helped a vampire get clean. Let's be real people to each other, Mitchell, isn't that what you want? Look, I'm in love with you."

He rubs his forehead as if he's got a headache. "How am I supposed to respond to  _that_?"

"What would anyone say? Or, really, what would  _you_ say?"

He gives a short mirthless laugh, then there's a long silence. He seems like he might say something, and then doesn't. Instead, he exhales loudly, lights a cigarette of his own, and rubs the side of his face again. I take the ashtray and set it down on the table in front of him.

"What do you  _want_ me to say? A normal person would say, I love you too. And he might say, let's get married, and... and... get a dog, and paint the nursery, and go to the cinema on Thursday nights. But I can't."

"Why can't you go to the cinema?"

"You know what I mean. No matter what I do, it won't be like that. And you want that, don't you?"

As long as I'm with him, whether it's just for another week, or for years, this question will be in the back of his mind, and mine. We both know it.

"Are you ready to stop doing this? I'm not." I fight and defeat the urge to start crying, instead taking a few long, slow breaths. "My world is so much better with you in it. Nothing is ordinary anymore, not even ordinary things. And when you're not acting like a jackass, I quite enjoy your company."

He shakes his head slowly and gazes into the middle distance, exhaling smoke. "You make me better than I am, you know. I'll  _always_ want that. But it's not fair to you, is it? I want you to be happy."

"For God's sake, we're not obligated to be miserable! But since neither of us knows exactly what we're doing, let's say we get to make up how this goes. I want  _us_ to be happy. We can just be us. I won't let you use me up. When it's too much, I'll let you know, I promise."

"I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you because of me."

"I know."

"So are we good then?"

"We're good."

"Sorry for being an arsehole. I still think you're fucking brilliant."

At least he didn't pat me on the head. 

 

 

 


	8. Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is the world opening up for Mitchell, or shutting him out? And who keeps Josie safe?

James and Albert are growing quite fond of Mitchell. They like to have people about when they are working. They say it lightens the atmosphere. Sometimes we visit and watch them push paint across canvas and crop giant photo prints of street people and furniture into collages.

We help recruit the audience for a performance. The attendees are ushered into a room. We turn out the lights. Groping in the dark, Albert and James hand out blank sheets of paper, one per person. The lights stay out. The audience murmurs and whispers and giggles, the din growing louder and louder until it sounds like a theatre foyer during intermission. After five minutes or so, the lights go back on. The room falls dead silent while everyone's eyes to adjust to the brightness. Albert explains that there had been poetry written on the pages, but it escaped in the dark. The piece is over. Bows and thank yous. There's a ripple of nervous laughter, and they shoo everyone out the door. The end.

This time, after the show, we all go back to my place, where we chain smoke and get drunk on gin while playing old scratchy records on the phonograph. Mitchell knows all the words.

Feeling very much at home in my flat, the boys take over the couch. Albert rests his head on James' lap and lies there folding extra paper from the show into airplanes and launching them across the room, where they crumple their paper noses against the windowpanes and skitter to the floor.

Mitchell is sitting in the armchair and I'm coming back from the kitchen with more drinks, when from out of nowhere, a paper airplane glides onto the coffee table, sliding gracefully to a landing in front of James. He turns to see who's thrown it but there's no-one there. With a surprised expression, he picks it up.

"There's something written on this," he says. The pencil scratchings are unreadable until the paper is fully unfolded. "Hm. Look here."

The paper reads, _Mitchell is a monster_.

"Funny," says James.

Mitchell has gone very still. He glares in the direction the paper plane came from.

"Yes, _funny_ ," he says, clearly meaning the opposite. His expression darkens.

A figure resolves in the corner and waves merrily. Shit. Damn. Blast. It's Stephanie. This can't be good.

It's as if Mitchell's been kicked. He winces and wraps his arms tightly around his body. Standing beside his chair, I touch his arm, but he doesn't look up. Vindictive bitch. If she weren't already dead, I'd strangle her.

Albert, who hasn't yet registered our distress, sits up, tilts his head to one side, and scratches the back of his neck. "What kind of a joke is that?" he asks.

"Not much of one," I say, looking reproachfully at Stephanie.

She crosses her arms and stares daggers at both of us. "Come clean," she says. "Or you can stop seeing these friends of yours altogether. I can follow you, you know. It's only a matter of time before I work out how to get to their place."

"Josie, are there mice again?" says Mitchell, a little too loudly. "They've been so noisy the past few weeks."

That's not going to help.

"Mice who can write and throw paper airplanes?" says Albert. He sits back and regards Mitchell critically. "What on earth is going on here?"

Stephanie is adamant. "Tell them. Or I will. They might not be able to hear me, but my handwriting is fine. And I know how to spell 'vampire'."

"This can't happen," Mitchell says.

"She's been hassling me for weeks. Do you want to let her decide how this goes down? She's going to keep coming back."

His mouth tightens to a bitter line. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Should I have? She'd wanted me to, so he'd be thrown off-balance. "You had enough on your mind. She kept turning up, but there was nothing you could've done."

"Okay, now that you're here, what do you want?" he asks Stephanie. His tone is gentle, like he's speaking to someone fragile.

She shuts her eyes tightly for a second as if blinking back tears, then recovers. There's a slight quiver in her voice. "Personally, I've had with this ghost business. I'd like to be done with it. But I've been sent here to discourage you from playacting. It's not in the plan."

"What plan? Nobody told me about any plan."

She stares at the floor and scratches one of her forearms, which is crisscrossed with pinkish scars. "The... the way things are supposed to be. This isn't it. This is a lie. You don't belong with these people, not with her, not with any of them. Would you like me to appear to them the way you last saw me, Mitchell? Because they'll let me do that."

"Please don't," I say.

James gives me an accusatory look. After all, I'd been less than truthful with him about Mitchell, who's clearly bonkers, and now, as far as he can tell, I'm talking to nobody too. "Is he hearing voices?" he asks.

"Erm. Yes. I mean, no. I mean he is, but so am I. Because there's a... a _ghost_ here. She wants to cause trouble."

"Really. A ghost?" says Albert.

He and James are exchanging looks in a kind of silent dialogue, trying to decide how to address our obvious shared insanity. "Josie, are the two of you on acid or something?" asks James.

"No!" I turn to Mitchell. "Maybe we should just tell them. She can't threaten you if they already know."

He has been gazing fixedly at a spot on the carpet, but at this he looks up and exhales audibly. He's still hugging his body, shoulders drawn in as if he's cold. "I don't know what we should do, Josie. I really don't know. Just... do what you think is best."

"I think I'm going to tell them."

Stephanie gives a start. She didn't think we'd really do it.

There's a hopeless look in his eyes. His shoulders sag. I slip my arm around him and say, "Please. It'll be okay, I trust them. We're all friends here."

He nods once, almost imperceptibly.

"Maybe you should go for a walk."

"Okay. Good idea." Mitchell rummages through the coats hanging one over the other on a hook in the entryway, finds his black leather jacket, and puts it on, leaving the others tumbled in a pile on the floor. The door clicks shut.

Stephanie smiles without a trace of joy. "You're on, sister."

* * *

"He's making you weird," says Albert. "You were practically in hiding for weeks, and now you say you're talking to ghosts."

"We're quite worried about you," says James. "Roger was no good for you, he made you into whatever _he_ wanted. I know, I know, he took you places, and gave you opportunities, but at the same time, he made you smaller. He grew bigger and bigger and you kept shrinking. I hated watching that. He used you up and then he left. An alcoholic will do the same thing to you, only without the chance to travel."

"He's not an alcoholic. It's much stranger than that."

"What do you mean?"

"Before I explain, I first want to tell you I'm not mad. I'm not imagining things. I'm not on any drugs. I'm not even a little bit drunk."

I say everything very quickly, like ripping off a plaster all at once.

"I wish it weren't true, but … Mitchell is older than he looks. He was in the Great War, a soldier. He became a vampire, gave his life, to save his men. He came to me for help in getting clean, and I couldn't find it in my heart to turn him away. There was nowhere else he could go. He got so, so ill, in pain and delirious for weeks. You can't even imagine how awful it was."

Albert holds up his hand like a policeman ordering me to stop. "Wait wait wait wait. Did you say 'vampire'? _Vampire_?"

"Yes." My face feels prickly, pins and needles. I think I've been neglecting to breathe. Sitting on the floor seems like a good idea. If I pass out I won't have far to fall.

Albert folds Stephanie's note into rectangles, runs a thumbnail across the creases to sharpen them, and folds the paper again and again. "This 'getting clean' then... do you mean, from _blood_? That's absurd."

"I know it sounds that way. But Albert, you _know_ me. Why would I make that up? It would be so much easier to say, 'Yeah, he has a few too many now and then.' I'd rather not lie to you. Please, you're two of my dearest friends."

"Is he in a cult?"

"No. Vampires aren't a cult. They're physically different from us. They live on blood. It's what they're built for, like lions eat zebras, or sharks eat seals."

"So how does he get this blood? Does he ask nicely for it?"

"Erm... it doesn't really work like that. They generally kill. But he doesn't do that anymore."

James has pushed his spectacles up to the top of his head so he can rub his eyes in disbelief. Now he squints at me. "Josie, this is really too much. you can't possibly think that it's sensible even to let someone like that into your home, far less into your life as a … an intimate. It's practically suicidal."

"I know it looks that way. But I've never been so sure of anything in my life: he won't hurt me."

"Why do you think that?" Albert tosses the tattered paper onto the table and gets up. He stretches one arm behind his head, then the other, lifts each shoulder in turn, rolls his head in a full circle. He ends the routine by lacing his fingers together and turning his palms outward to crack all of his knuckles. He may be short, but he's broad-shouldered and well-muscled under that frayed pullover. I wouldn't want to fight him.

"It's been months and I'm still here, aren't I?" Nothing I say will convince them. My hands are clenched so tightly my fingernails dig into my palms.

Albert's shoes have been making loud clomping noises as he paces back and forth in front of the door. The clomping stops. "And that's all we have to go on? So you're telling me first, that he's a predatory animal that drinks blood, and second, that despite that, he won't hurt anyone? You've got to be joking."

"How long have we been friends? Have I ever done anything stu... Have I ever shown any signs of hallucinating or dabbling in the occult or believing in fairy stories? Do I seem like I'm in an altered state of consciousness?"

"But you've just said he's fucking dangerous."

_Can I say he's perfectly safe? Exhale. Inhale. Think. I can't say it. I so want to._

"I've never felt endangered, not by him, and he knows that if anyone I care about gets hurt I'd never forgive him. I can't say what he's like when I'm not there, obviously."

"This is utter madness," says James. "And you can't possibly have a future with him. "

"I don't care. I have a now. Maybe I have a tomorrow, and maybe a next week."

With a bright white flash, the television turns itself on. We all swivel around to see Stephanie, in her nude, mutilated incarnation, regarding us from the snowy static. She looks like a butchered side of meat with eyes. "Now _I'm_ on. Look, everyone. This is what Mitchell did," she says, moving her hand down her body like a model showing off a new car. Albert's eyes are like saucers. James replaces his spectacles. All the pink drains from his face.

I'm so frustrated I punch the side of the television. "Dammit, Stephanie! That was before. He wanted to stop because of you. You don't mean to force him back to that, do you?"

"What have I got to lose?" she says.

"Nothing. But we have plenty to lose. And if you take it all away from us, then what? Do you win a prize?"

"I'll have done my job."

"Your job? That's what you want to leave behind? You drove a well-meaning person back to evil? You denied him the chance to be anything else? It won't make you any less dead."

Stephanie seems to deflate. "This is so unfair! No matter what I do, it won't be right. If I split you up, he'll go back to the vampires. If I don't, then I'm not doing my job."

"You poor thing. Of course it's not fair. It won't ever be. I'm so sorry, love."

My friends are horrified. James looks pale and sick, his forehead glistening with sweat. Albert is flushed and glowering. "That's our ghost," I tell them. I think they believe me now.

* * *

Slow deliberate footsteps make their way up the stairs. Mitchell wants us to hear him coming.

On the screen, Stephanie pushes a wisp of bleached blond hair out of her eyes. "Whoops. I'll show myself out then," she says. With a click, the picture shrinks to a tiny white pinpoint in the middle of the black screen.

Albert may be shorter than Mitchell, but he's strong and quick. He spies a stake that must have fallen out of one of the pile of jackets, grabs it, and tackles Mitchell as he walks in, pressing him to the floor with a knee in the chest. Albert holds the stake threateningly, but Mitchell has hold of his wrist.

"Josie told me what you are. If anything happened to her I'd never forgive myself for leaving her alone with you." He points the stake at Mitchell's neck. "This stick, does it kill you?"

Mitchell's voice is flat and faraway. "Yeah, but you have to put it through here." With his free hand he points to his heart. "Go ahead. I won't fight you. I don't want anyone else hurt. Josie, thank you for believing in me. Thank you for everything. I mean it. I love you as much as I know how."

I can't believe this is happening. This can't happen. I won't let it.

"Both of you stop it! Get up. GET UP! I'm a grown woman. Do you idiots think I can't make decisions for myself? Get up."

Albert stands up but continues to brandish the stake. Mitchell pats Albert on the arm, walks past him to the armchair, and sits down. He crosses his arms over his chest. My god, I almost lost him just then. I stand behind the chair put my hands on his shoulders, feeling him solidly there, smelling the cigarette smoke in his hair. His hand reaches up and covers mine.

I'm biting the insides of my cheeks to prevent myself from sobbing uncontrollably. "Nobody wants this but me, and, I thought, _you_ , Mitchell. Albert, James, I know you want to protect me. I'll never have better friends than you. Thank you. But please, please listen to me. Mitchell can't change what he is. We can't change what happened in the past. But we sure as hell have a choice about what happens next."

My face is streaming with tears. "We are better together than we are apart. It can't be forever, but I'm telling you it's real. I know the risk. I've known all along. To me, it's worth it. Please give him a chance, that's all."

James stares, glassy-eyed, at the wall. He seems to be talking to himself. "We're normally the odd ones, you know. Nobody thinks we're sincere anymore. Of course last week I told several people I was a tree. I felt rooted and generous that day, what can I say? After that, I had a bad week, and I was rain and mud, cold and dirty. But nobody took it literally. A vampire is just exactly _a vampire,_ isn't he? No room for poetic license. You think you know someone and then you find out you really have no idea about him at all."

"But you do know him. He gets your jokes. He thinks your paintings are brilliant. How many times have you got drunk together? Why would he suddenly be different?"

"We're constantly different." James is speaking rather more loudly than he needs to. "There's who you are with your lover, who you are with your mates, who you are with the public, who you are when you're performing your own act, who you are when you're performing someone else's. All different. All artificial, aren't they? Even with your dearest friends, you show them the _you_ that you want them to see."

"And what if people find out it's an act? I ask. "Does it change anything at all?"

"I suppose not. There is no 'who you are' apart from what people see, is there? Your actions are the only things they _can_ know about you. You can tell any kind of story about someone, but the real story is the person looking back at you. The rest of it is always fiction. Some of the fictions are more fantastical, though. My word."

"Who wants gin?" asks Albert.

* * *

Several drinks later, James steeples his fingers in front of his face, pondering. "Mitchell, are you busy later this week?"

"No, I'd say I've a great deal of spare time, actually."

"What sort of things can you do?"

"Whatever you need me to. I mind my own business," he says.

"He's a very good cleaner," I say. "He could certainly be a help."

"Come see us tomorrow. I may have a job for you."

* * *

Now Mitchell works for James and Albert. He helps them with housekeeping, builds canvas stretchers, cleans paintbrushes, runs errands. It's good for him to keep busy, to get out of the house and interact with people, especially people who aren't me. I'm relieved that he's no longer cooped up in the flat, and grateful to finally get some time to myself. We're both much more relaxed.

One day, Mitchell comes home buzzing with excitement. "I helped them make pictures! At first I was holding things so they looked like they were floating. Then they pointed a camera at me and… and... and... asked me to do things. They said it changed the quality of the photo even though I didn't show in it. James went on and on about 'negative space'. I was in front of white backdrops, black ones, mirrors, even. He said he couldn't tell it was me, but he could definitely sense something. Look."

He's brought home a black and white contact sheet showing shot after shot of empty picture frames, staged like portraits but with nobody in them. Is the mood different from picture to picture? I can't be sure.

He points. "I'm in that one, and that one, but not that one."

"How can you tell?"

He indicates one frame, a picture of a mirror reflecting an empty room. "In that one I've got no clothes on!"

"Is that really true?"

"Do you want it to be? Then yes, absolutely." He stifles a laugh.

"Cheeky. Then that one's my favorite," I say. "Or perhaps this one. You're standing on your head in this one, right?" I choose a shot with a black curtain for a backdrop.

"Hey, I'm not even in that one!"

"Oh yeah? Prove it. Hey, what's wrong with your hair in that? And why are your eyes closed?"

It's a shame his absolutely stunning smile will never show up on film.


	9. Old and New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie and Mitchell are learning to navigate their new life. Nobody else knows quite what to make of them.

Life takes on a rhythm. We go to work, sleep in on weekends, watch television or read books or ignore each other. It depends on the day. We are spectacularly ordinary.

Except we're not. Shaving is a mystical art, chatting with the postman a secret triumph. In bed on a Sunday reading the paper, him with the sport section and me with the arts section, blue static arcs between his skin and mine. "It's not magic," he says, "perhaps it's the carpet."

* * *

I'm putting away the supper dishes one evening when there's a knock at the door. Robbie is there, shifting from foot to foot, with his hands jammed in the pockets of his blue jeans. He stares at the floor and says, "We're having a little p-party upstairs, you're invited."

Why not? We should get to know our neighbors. Their singing, talking, and laughing echo through the floor nearly every night. Sometimes the music from their hi-fi is loud enough to shake the walls.

Robbie opens the door to his flat and we're greeted with a cloud of fragrant smoke. His flatmate is tall and burly, with a ginger ponytail and a long mustache that flows into big mutton chop sideburns. He wears a fringed suede jacket that's nearly the color of his hair. Bent over a battered guitar, trying out one chord and another and humming to himself, he occupies most of the old tapestry-draped sofa. An open bottle of Jack Daniels, half full, is on the end table beside him.

He stands and extends a huge pink freckled hand. "Howdy. I'm Grant. You must be John Mitchell, mighty nice to meet you. What's your name, pretty lady?" His voice is deep and rumbly, with an unhurried American accent that reminds me of old western films and a low distant drumbeat. Cowboys and Indians.

"I'm Josie."

Grant kisses my hand with an exaggerated flourish. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. "

"Erm, likewise. What were you playing?" I'm not sure what to say to him.

"Just some old songs. Like 'em?" He smiles.

I smile back, stretching my face further than it wants to go. "You sound great."

"Hey Rob, how about we play a couple more?"

Robbie's been slouched on the folding bed staring into space. He holds a lit cigarette slackly between thumb and forefinger, ignoring the ashes falling on the mattress. When Grant starts another song, Robbie notices his cigarette, puts it between his lips, and picks up a guitar too.

They play folk ballads and Johnny Cash and Dylan and some country and western songs I don't recognize. Grant sings in a warm, rumbling voice with a rasp of smoke and whiskey. Robbie plays rhythm guitar and sings harmony.

After the music ends, Robbie seems surprised that we're here. "Hullo," he says. " G-g-good to see you up and about, Mitchell."

Mitchell looks uncomfortable. "Er, thanks."

"Like a drink?" Robbie asks me. "Don't worry, j-j-just the regular kind."

"Can you spare any of that?" Mitchell asks, indicating the bottle beside Grant.

"Sure, help yerself," says Grant.

"I will, thanks." Grant passes the bottle over and Mitchell takes a good long pull from it. And another.

Robbie brings me a gin and tonic. He's even notched the slice of lime so it perches tidily on the edge of the glass. Thoughtful.

Mitchell sits and smokes. His expression is guarded.

There's a knock at the door but it opens before anyone can answer it. It's that annoying vampire who barged in when Mitchell was ill. His face twitches slightly when he notices me.

Robbie shrinks into his seat. Though he has set down his guitar, his foot taps rhythmically, unconsciously, as if he's still keeping time. He gulps bourbon. Ice cubes rattle. Grant puts his guitar back into its shabby case and props it against the wall. He recorks the whiskey bottle.

The man seems oddly cheery. "I'd heard the party was here! Thought I'd drop by and see how everyone's getting on." He extends a hand to Grant. Now that I'm not as exhausted and overwhelmed, I notice his scouse accent and air of smug superiority. He's accustomed to being the smartest person in the room. "Nick Cutler, at your service."

Grant gets up to shake hands. He's a head taller than Cutler, and half again as broad in the shoulders. "Very pleased to meet you. Thanks for making me feel so welcome."

"And you must be Grant. Was no trouble at all. We aim to please. How are you finding England?"

"I like it. Could be warmer, but you can't have everything, now, can you?"

"No, I don't suppose you can."

"Damp, too. Back in California, in the desert, it was dry as a bone. Nothing ever rotted, just shrivelled up and blew away. Leave anything uncovered here and it'll stink up a place in no time. Must be a hell of a lot of work."

Cutler raises his shoulders until they are nearly next to his ears, like an unfinished shrug, and smiles, baring his teeth. I'm reminded of a rearing cobra. Or perhaps a hunchbacked weasel. "We've had a long time to get that sorted." He flicks a sideways glance at me, and turns back to Grant. "Trade secret, I'll tell you later, when the company is less, er, _mixed_."

"No need," says Mitchell. "Go on, explain it now. Won't be anything Josie hasn't heard already."

The hair prickles on the back of my neck. He has, in fact, told me more than I wanted to know about hiding bodies, but that's not really the point. Mitchell is acting on his own terms, not Cutler's. I want to get out of here in the worst way.

"Be that as it may, I'd rather not discuss it with a...a... _girl_ in the room. It's not the done thing, as I'm sure you know."

Mitchell narrows his eyes, lights a cigarette and takes a long drag. He addresses Robbie as if Cutler isn't there. "The new recruits-that'll include you, Robbie, once you're settled-are responsible for cleanup detail, isn't that right, _Nick_?" Mitchell eyes him. Cutler blinks hard, but his face stays blank. "You don't look so far removed from that job yourself, _Nick_. I just bet you're an absolute whiz at digging holes, mopping floors, and getting blood out of shirt collars."

Standing up, I say, loudly, "Mitchell, I'm knackered. Do you mind if I head home to bed? Grant, lovely to meet you. Robbie, thanks for the drink. And the music. Good night."

Mitchell stands too, and takes my arm. "It _is_ getting late. I'm feeling a bit tired myself." Since no-one had offered Cutler a seat, he's still standing there in the middle of the room. We brush past him on our way out.

Pissing contest averted.

* * *

Or not.

We're at my door and I'm fishing the keys from my coat pocket when Nick Cutler appears behind us.

"A word, please. I really didn't feel like we said a proper good night. And I wanted to offer you some perspective."

Annoyed, Mitchell wheels around to stand between Cutler and the door. He crosses his arms and scowls. "All right. Talk. Make it quick."

Neither of them is ready to let this drop. I'm frustrated. Really, I just want to go to bed.

Cutler's voice drips with condescension. "It's all so inevitable isn't it? You go along thinking you can live with them, among them, have a life, no one will notice. But someone always does. There are some things you can't hide, some people who won't let well enough alone. It's too seductive, too intriguing. It will kill them, every time."

Mitchell is keeping hold of his temper, but his eyes are hooded and his voice carries the barest trace of hostility. "It doesn't have to. There are ways to keep people safe."

"There aren't. You had better come to terms with it. I had to. You must have done, at some point, then something threw you off. What was it? Boredom? Loneliness? Love? Rebellion? Contrariness? Guilt? Arrogance?"

I really don't like Mr. Cutler.

"No. it was the utter pointlessness of it all. We all just keep going, destruction and death, over and over. We live only to feed. Why bother? It's so fucking boring."

"We do have a larger purpose, Mitchell, but you are ignoring it. We take care of our own don't we? You have a responsibility-"

"-not to rock the boat? Fine. I won't. I want to be left alone. What I do is no-one else's business."

"No-one else's business? You've chosen some interesting priorities, haven't you? Putting humans above your own kind. Are you sure you're not still delirious? Why are you trying to pretend you are something that you're not? You need your own species. We both know it."

"Look, the blokes upstairs seem all right, but vampires are exactly what I don't need. What can I tell you that will convince you to leave us alone?"

"Ah, but we have left you alone. We've done nothing but run interference for you. Why do you think you've got these particular neighbors? It's to keep anyone away who might ask too many questions. Or the wrong ones. It's safer this way, don't you agree? Anyway, I'm off. Have a lovely evening."

With a jaunty wave and a grin that makes me want to punch him, he's gone.

Mitchell's face is stormy. "He's trying to make me angry,"

"Are you going to let him?"

"No. That's what he wants."

* * *

Another night. We're up late but I don't want to sleep yet. I'm unwinding in front of the television after a day's work, a quiet supper, a couple of drinks. Nothing special tonight. Weather forecast. Summaries of tennis matches. After football scores, the news begins to report on the war: destroyed villages, horrific photos, death tolls. Mitchell gets up and switches channels until we hear "Yakety Sax." The screen shows nothing but swiftly rotating black stripes.

While he's adjusting the vertical hold, Stephanie appears. She's taken his spot beside me on the couch. She points at the ridiculous chase now visible, revolving slowly on the screen, involving Benny Hill, a topless girl, and a motor scooter. "D'you really think that's funny?"

We haven't seen Stephanie since the night we explained things to James and Albert. I'd started to wonder if she was gone for good, or if we'd driven her off. Mitchell stands up. I can't see his face, but his posture goes slack.

"Not really, no..." Right, this is weird. "Oh. Stephanie, hello! How long have you been here?" I'm halfway glad to see her. She's not a vampire or a five-year-old.

"I'm not really sure. Sometimes it feels like I never left."

Mitchell is still fiddling with the dials trying to get the picture fully still. Its black frame keeps rising gradually to the top of the screen, reappearing at the bottom, and rising again.

"Stephanie, why can't you go? What are you supposed to be doing?" He sounds like he's talking to a cornered animal.

"I didn't ask to be here. I think you said to me once, it's not personal. I'll say the same to you. I don't have a choice." She draws her knees up to her chin and wraps her arms around them.

Mitchell turns the volume on the television all the way down, but doesn't shut it off. Instead of sitting in the vacant armchair, he slides the coffee table back from the couch a couple of feet and sits on it, facing me and Stephanie. "But what are you _doing_ here? "

She ignores the question. "I don't get it. I really thought you understood me. You were so... gentle. I was sick and broken and hurting, and you helped me. Did you know that? You changed something, and suddenly I was... better. And then I was dead. "

"I don't want to hurt people anymore. I wish 'sorry' helped, but I know it doesn't."

Stephanie isn't interested. "My mum used to tell me, don't say sorry, just don't do it. You're not better than the others, you know. You seem to think that you're less awful because you feel awful. You're not. Get this through your head: I don't care how you feel about it. I'm amazed you found someone who does. The poor gullible thing."

She radiates jagged red hurt. She's being torn apart, pulled one way by whatever brought her back, and in the other by her own grief and pain and loneliness. She's the poor thing, not me.

"Don't feel bad for me," I say. "Mitchell's told me things. He's no white knight. He's been damaged. But we all have. Maybe you understand. Would you kill to make the pain stop?"

She looks down at her hands. "I might have. It never came to that."

"You're free now. You don't need it anymore. He died more than fifty years ago, and he's been like this, trying to stop the pain, every second of every day since. Before all of that, he died. Imagine it. We can't change what's past. "

She twists away from me to face Mitchell squarely. "Why am I listening to your girlfriend? Why aren't you telling me this yourself?"

"Would you take it seriously if I'd said it?"

"Probably not."

Nobody says anything.

"Stephanie," I say gently, "is there any way we can help you?" I light a cigarette and set it in the ashtray near her. I know she likes the smoke.

She presses her eyes with her fingertips. Her nail polish is chipped. "I don't know. I've nowhere to go. I'm not sure what to do with myself. I don't feel a thing. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't smoke, I can't touch anyone, I can't do dope. I can't even cry."

I try to put an arm around her but it sinks disconcertingly past her outline to rest somewhere beneath the contour of her shoulder. It's like holding a pile of dry leaves.

Finally, she leans against my shoulder, and weeps, quietly at first, but building to anguished sobbing that nearly breaks my heart. Stephanie was doomed the moment he laid eyes on her. Or possibly before that. It's Mitchell's fault, but I am complicit. Aiding and abetting. I can't take it back either.

"Poor lamb. Go ahead, let it out, I've got you, " I murmur to her. "It'll be alright. It's alright." It isn't. I'm holding back tears of my own.

Mitchell seems utterly desolate. "Stephanie, love, I really am sorry," he says, shaking his head. "But I'm no help, am I? I'll leave you alone. You're in good hands." He switches off the silent television. "Good night."

I watch the white pinpoint on the screen fade away to black while Stephanie takes a few moments to calm down. She arches her back, stretches her legs and rests her feet on the coffee table. "Thank you," she says. "That did help a little."

"So, are you still here to turn Mitchell bad again?"

"No. I've quit that job. Now they won't let me back."

"Back where?"

"Through my door. I'm stuck here 'til I give them what they want."

"Here? In this flat? And what do you mean by 'them'?"

"More or less here. I've looked in on Jenna's old place. It wasn't ever really my home. I tried to stay there, but I kept disappearing without meaning to, and finding myself back here. They want me to haunt Mitchell. Still, Robbie was a friend of mine, you know."

"I didn't know. "

"Yeah, he was seeing Jenna, but it was... sort of complicated."

"Complicated how? "

"Well, Robbie and me, we were sort of, er, close."

"How charming."

"It wasn't like that, really. Jenna was my best friend, she did so much for me, she took me in, she got me away from Freddie... "

"And you cheated with her boyfriend? That's how you repaid her? What was it like, then? And who's Freddie?"

"My ex. A nasty piece of work, he is. He's a dope dealer. I was an addict. He used to make me blow his customers. Disgusting."

"Ugh. That's awful."

"Over with now. Robbie's always been a sweetheart. Bit of a pushover, really. And he was good to me when no-one else was. Jenna didn't know. She was quite old-fashioned when it came down to it. She'd have been devastated."

"Have you spoken to him since..."

"Since I came back? No. I can't think what to say. Sorry you're a vampire? How's bloodsucking going? Look at me I'm transparent? We were both just people and now we're... It's all too weird."

A question occurs to me.

"Speaking of weird, Stephanie, I shouldn't be able to see you, should I? Why can I see you? "

"At first it was because they allowed it. I was supposed to frighten you. That didn't really work did it?"

"Oh, I was plenty frightened."

"You were? You didn't let on. I expected you to scream or something."

"I didn't think you'd hurt me. There's a difference between being frightened and fearing for your life. I don't see a need to be loud unless it's the second one. And sometimes not even then."

"You know, your judgement can deceive you. Freddie made me fear for my life. Mitchell never did."

I ignore this.

"If you've stopped doing a job for them, why can I still see you?"

"You've been sleeping with a vampire for a long time now, haven't you?"

"Oh. I see." My strange journey with him, the electricity, the vivid dreams, the spinning feeling I'd thought was vertigo: they all have a physical cause. "And if I stop, I won't be able to see you anymore?"

"That's right."

She's so translucent that wisps of smoke are visible passing behind her face. Lamplight filtering through the smoke gives her a hazy pinkish aura.

"The two of you are a package deal then? "

"I suppose you could say that."

There's nowhere else for her to go.

* * *

Roger has been steadfast in his desire to remain friends. After much cajoling from him, I agree to meet him for a drink after work.

He hasn't changed much. He still has a warm smile and an incongruously high, giggly laugh. I'm still fascinated by the way he moves his long tapered elegant hands when he speaks, and irritated when he deliberately mispronounces words for effect, with a knowing, jokey waggle of eyebrows. _"Syoo-per-syoo-nic air-ee-oh-plane_ ," he'd say. " _Im-poss-i-bubble_."

He takes a small object out of his pocket. "What do you think of this?"

It's a box about the size of a box of cigarettes, painted white, with a label on it that reads, " _Box of smile_ ". When you slide the lid back and look inside, the bottom of the box is a mirror.

"I got it from that Japanese girl we saw perform awhile back, do you remember? She's selling them by the case. I thought they were quite clever. Lydia said it looked like a compact for doing your makeup, or more likely, storing your blow, and said she didn't want it. Wasn't girly enough."

I frown into the mirror, checking my hair. It can be used for that. Then I realize I'm not following the instructions, implicit though they may be, and can't help laughing. I look in the mirror again, and my reflection smiles back. It works! Blow is apparently optional. I can't afford it anyway.

"Roger, I love it!"

"I knew you'd get it. Keep it."

"No, I couldn't."

"It's yours, really. I miss you Josie. You keep me honest. You don't jump to conclusions, instead you ask why. I so admire that about you. We always fit together so well."

 _Roger still cares for me._ We could go back to our old life together. It would be so simple, nothing any more difficult to worry about than which dancers to hire, which party to attend first. For a moment I'm tempted. God, I'm weak.

But. Mitchell. A whirl of fascination, dread, sorrow, desire. His clear eyes. Freezing toes. The taste of him, honey and charcoal. The dark, empty, violent world behind this warm familiar one, fading in and out of view. The addictive electricity between us. The half-circle dimple at the side of his mouth when he smiles. What might happen if I left him.

Here's the thing: It's not some idyllic love that makes your life complete and culminates in grandchildren and family photo albums. I know that isn't in the cards. It's a more complicated kind, where you know, even before it begins, that there is never going to be a happily ever after, but you stay together because separating will tear a hole in both of you. Sorry, Roger. Not a chance.

"Let's work together again," Roger says. "I love your creative energy so much. I'd forgotten how easy you are to be with. You make anything seem possible."

 _You don't know the half of it_.

"How is Lydia? "

"Good, good. She keeps me on my toes."

"I miss you too, Roger, but I've moved on. I've other obligations."

"Have you met someone?"

I cross my legs and bump my knee on the low pub table. "Yes."

"I see. That's wonderful for you. Where did you meet?"

"Is it really any of your business?"

"No, I suppose it isn't."

He has no idea, but he thinks he does. His voice goes cold.

"I wish you'd reconsider the offer. Think of your priorities - this is your career! With your history of injuries, you're damaged goods, so at your age you may not get another chance. You're only wasting the time you have left until you have your babies and get old. I can't imagine you've anything better to do."

"Roger, how could you say that? Can you even hear yourself? Get it through your head. I don't need you."

The arrogance. He thinks he can waltz back into my life whenever the fancy strikes him and pick up where he left off. I've been places and done things wilder than his most exotic and elaborate fantasies. I rub at the faint bumpy scar on my little finger. It's nearly gone.

He looks like a child who's been slapped. "I thought you wanted to stay friends."

"I did, and I've tried, but you are making it very difficult. I never realized how little you thought of me."

"What do you mean? I've just asked you back into the company."

"How very magnanimous of you. Piss off."

Why do these men think they know what's best for me? Why did I believe them? Presumptuous gits. My cheeks are hot with rage.

_I want to scratch his eyes out. I imagine the feeling of my nails tearing into his flesh, my fingers sinking into his eye sockets and behind the smooth, rubbery, slimy eyeballs, and prying them out. How they would look dangling from their roots, bobbing against his bleeding face, the eyelids grotesquely sunken._

I must calm down. _And, breathe, two, three, four. And again, two, three, four_.

Roger did not expect me to turn him down. He shakes his head like a schoolteacher reprimanding a pupil. "I think you're making a mistake."

"That's your opinion. And I think I'm done here. Thanks for the pint." I leave my glass three-quarters full, pull on my coat and head home.

My fuse is so short these days. I'm shedding an old skin; my flesh shreds and reshapes itself. _Don't touch me. Don't get near me. I don't know what I might do._

* * *

Back home, Mitchell is sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette, deeply involved in the crossword puzzle, with a cup of tea balanced on his leg, and a half-eaten packet of crisps on the coffee table. The packet has fallen over and half of the crisps have spilled onto the floor.

I burst out laughing. All my seething resentment evaporates. As quietly as possible, I remove the teacup from his knee and set it on the coffee table. No need to risk any more broken cups. My kiss on the cheek startles him.

"What? Oh, hello. You're home late."

"Sorry to interrupt. You looked soooo very busy. "

"I was just passing the time. I'll tidy this up."

After quickly finishing the tea, he sets the cup on the table and attempts to sweep up the spilled crisps.

"Wait, I'll get you the broom."

While he sweeps up crumbs, I tell him about my chat with Roger, his job offer, that he first tried to seduce me and when I turned him down he got nasty and personal.

"What an arsehole. But maybe you should take the job. "

"But he was so awful. I'm absolutely furious with him."

"Are you sure you want to burn that bridge? Can you work with him anyway? Or did he only want to get back together? Because he's right. The job might be a good opportunity for you."

"I don't know anymore. Since you got here things are so different."

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere on account of him. We've had to make lots of adjustments, but it won't always be like this. I don't want to stop you living your life. I can go on endlessly, but you can't. It wouldn't be right for me to hold you back."

What do I want? How long can we do this? I'll get older, I might want a family, I might tire of the constant fear that some vampire will decide I'm a useful pawn. He's said as much: this can't go on forever.

"What would I gain by going back to Roger, hat in hand, and asking him for the job? Would it be worth it?"

"I can't answer that. I don't know him, I only know you. You don't love your job now. What would you do if I weren't here?"

"I...I...I'm still not sure. It would open a lot of old wounds. Lydia is still there, and it's just... ugh."

Mitchell frowns. "Are you serious? After everything you've been through, you're afraid of being uncomfortable? I know you're tougher than that. This is your life we're talking about here." He touches my cheek and gently lifts my chin until my eyes meet his. "I know this from experience: if you want something, ask. The worst he can say is no."

_What do I want?_

* * *

I'm sat in the armchair knitting while Robbie's teaching Mitchell to play guitar. It's been quite amusing to watch. After going over some basic chords, Mitchell trails off, frustrated.

"I'll work on this later. " He puts down the guitar. "You and Grant make it look so easy."

Robbie downs half his glass of whiskey and soda. "That's the only time I enjoy anything, playing music with Grant."

"Sorry to hear that."

"It was all I ever wanted to do. I keep t-t-telling myself it should be enough. But I miss the band. Of course we can't play in front of people -someone may try to photograph us. I never f-figured on that. Oh, perhaps we can do studio work or play vampire parties, and we do sometimes, but that's it. If we put out a record, we couldn't promote it. I'm sss-such an idiot."

Mitchell grins wryly. "Being a vampire isn't really a good career move, is it?"

"Then there's the other part - Grant calls it feeding, but come on, it's really m-m-murdering people and sucking their blood. He says it will get easier, but it hasn't yet."

Mitchell closes his eyes briefly, and rubs his forehead. "It does." He stares into the middle distance.

"And if I don't do it... You know what that's like."

"It's different for everyone."

"But it always hurts doesn't it? Mr C-c-cutler keeps checking in on us because we're new around here he said he wanted to make sure we were comfortable. He also said it was a bad idea to s-s-self medicate. You know what I mean. But I'm sure that would work! Why can't I?"

"Wouldn't do to have gangs of vampire junkies roaming about, would it? They're bad at following rules. We'd be compromised."

"Seriously, that's why?"

"Afraid so."

"Grant says Cutler's ' _the Man_ ,' whatever that means. We're to ask for what we need, and he makes sure we're b-b-behaving. Sometimes he's cool, and as long as we don't bring any attention to ourselves he says we can s-s-stay."

"That Cutler, he needs his face kicked in." He stands up. "Who wants tea?"

I would, and so would Robbie.

As Mitchell digs through the kitchen, Robbie gives a faint smile, picks up his guitar and sings, almost to himself. It's a Beatles song, "I'm looking through you."

In a wink, Stephanie is perched on the sofa beside Robbie. "What a perfect song," she says. "I always did like that one."

Robbie gives a start. "Stephanie! W-w-what are you doing here?"

"I died, I passed over, I was brought back as a sort of supernatural errand girl, and here I am."

"Errand girl? What do you mean?"

"It was such a drag. Something to do with Mitchell, I suppose, though I don't really know what they expected me to do. They just wound me up and turned me loose. Screw them."

She puts her hand on his. "I've missed you, Robbie. What happened? How did you end up this way? Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not. After you and Jenna died, I thought there was nothing left. I didn't c-care anymore." He puts his guitar away.

"How long has it been?"

"Just a couple of months. I met Grant in Birmingham, backstage at a show. I hadn't felt like seeing girls since Jenna died, I'd just been drinking and using lots of dope. I was m-miserable and lonely and didn't care about anything. When he asked me to join him I thought, why the hell not? Can't be any w-w-worse than where I am now. I was wrong."

"How did you two get back here?"

"He'd killed an actress in California, and people were looking for him. He pretended to be dead, had his friends leave his body in the desert, then hopped freight trains and stowed away on a ship to England. He'd been drifting about and needed somewhere to stay. I sort of mentioned I knew of a place that might be available. And here we are."

Stephanie takes hold of his elbow and leans her head on his shoulder. She's almost smiling. "What about your music? I thought it was all you cared about. Aside from Jenna."

"We can't play out but we can still p-p-play, and Grant's damn good. He has a bit of a temper but he's passable company. I went with him because he offered me something different."

She interrupts him with a very unladylike snort. The sound makes him flinch. He half-closes his eyes and bites his bottom lip.

"C-c-cut me a little slack, please. I was in a bad way."

"Sorry. It just seems like a peculiar method of coping."

"I was out of my mind. I thought I'd leave my old life and have adventures and it would be exciting and dangerous and spooky. Mostly it's none of those things. It's lonely and b-b-boring and ugly. The sun hurts my eyes, I keep cutting myself shaving, and I have to kill people. Not alright at all. "

"I can't say I approve of the lifestyle. You could say I've had first hand experience of it."

"I'd no idea you were killed by vampires until Mr. Cutler told me. They keep those sorts of things awfully quiet. "

"Did he tell you which vampires?"

He nods and flicks his eyes toward the kitchen, where Mitchell is smoking and making tea.

"And?"

"He said Mitchell was not to be trifled with, that he was more dangerous than most. I don't know what to think. I can't begin to understand him. Living with a human girl, giving up blood, pretending not to be one of us. "

"Yeah, I know. Him being reformed or clean or whatever is worth slightly less than fuck-all to me." She tilts her head. "But wouldn't you like to do that yourself? Go clean, I mean?"

"I think a lot of us would. It's not like killing people is a great weekend h-h-hobby. You really can't stop. When I first became a vampire, I couldn't think of anything but blood, and going without for even a day made me ridiculously ill, falling-down writhing, b-b-bugs-in-your-skin ill. They say you can go longer as you get older. "

"You've seen what he did to me?" She flashes into her mutilated form. I drop three stitches in my knitting. Seeing her that way still makes me feel sick.

"You look delicious, sweetheart. If you were real I'd eat you myself."

"Oh. Shit." Her shoulders drop in disappointment. To my tremendous relief, normal Stephanie replaces corpse Stephanie. She shakes her head sadly. "Jesus, Robbie. You're completely ruined, aren't you?"

"It's okay, I'll manage."

"I don't _want_ you to manage. How could you?"

"You of all people should understand. You do what you have to do." He covers her hand with his own. "It's good to see you Stephanie. Wow, you're really a ghost, aren't you?"

"Not so different than before. Even then I was barely there."

Mitchell returns with three mugs of tea on a tray. "Oh. Stephanie. Looks like I'm one short. I'll get another."

He sets down the tea tray and returns to the kitchen. A few moments later he returns with a fourth mug of tea which he wordlessly offers to Stephanie.

Briefly, Stephanie weaves her fingers through Robbie's, then accepts the tea, holding the warm mug with both hands. She gives Mitchell a puzzled, wary look.

"I can't drink it, you know."

"I know."


	10. Opening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party opens new doors and windows for Mitchell and Josie.

"Mitchell, you promised you'd be careful. This complicates everything!"

"I'm so sorry. It was an accident." Shamefaced, he drops his stained clothes on the floor.

"I know. These things happen sometimes. Albert deserves some of the blame too. He should have paid more attention." I fetch the fine-toothed comb from the bathroom and the mineral spirits from under the kitchen sink. "Sit down and get comfortable. It's going to take forever to get all that paint out of your hair."

* * *

It's a big night for James and Albert- their new photos and paintings are in a group exhibit at the art collective, and they are going to present their newest performance piece during the opening. The collective attracts a diverse crowd: grubby hippies, serious artists; crowds of poseurs, addicts, and lunatics; the occasional art buyer seeking unknown talent; and the rest of us somewhere in between. Frankly, the stakes are quite low-the art is just an excellent excuse to throw a party.

We're both nervous: Mitchell because of the throngs of unfamiliar people, me because of certain familiar people I'd rather not see. For courage, we share a whole bottle of wine before leaving the flat.

Mitchell has on his expensive blue suit, and I've probably spent more time on his hair than on my own. Honestly, he looked more than fine, rockstar cool, but the extra attention seemed to calm his nerves. I'm in a short black dress, false eyelashes that make my eyes look enormous, and black sequined shoes with heels as high as I can tolerate. Under my rhinestone necklace, at Mitchell's insistence, I have on my tiny silver cross. He says it doesn't bother him anymore.

The space is an old textile mill, an open, high-ceilinged room that was once a factory floor, hundreds of feet on a side, punctuated with massive iron support pillars. A stage is set up at one end of the room, labyrinthine gallery walls have been installed in another corner to show the paintings alongside a more open area for sculpture; and the very crowded bar is against the middle third of one of the long walls. The room is so large that the chatter and music combine into an echoing din that drowns out any conversations going on more than a few feet away.

Mitchell's eyes are hooded and distant as he surveys the cavernous space. "Let's play ' _spot the vampire',"_ he says.

For a human, I know an awful lot of vampires, but it's never occurred to me that I'd bump into them at parties. But really, why not? This is an ideal hunting ground: a big gathering of intoxicated people milling about in an enclosed, unevenly lit space with lots of dark corners and back exits. As for spotting vampires, well, their camouflage is nearly perfect- they look exactly like us. It must be very strange for Mitchell to be with me and not them.

He nudges me with his elbow. "Found one. No... three." With a meaningful glance, he indicates a small knot of people standing a few feet from the door, watching the attendees as they arrive. There's a man in a suit with a lanky blond teenage girl on his arm, tottering on five-inch heels, a shaggy-haired bloke in a Sgt. Pepperish military-style jacket, and a short balding man in a nondescript blazer and turtleneck pullover.

All four seem dodgy to me: outdated buttons-and-epaulets, creepy older man with a far-too-young girl, and some random ordinary bloke just hanging around for no reason. "Which of them _isn't_ a vampire?"

"It's the one in the suit. See how he's trying to make conversation? They're barely answering him because they're too busy looking for more...erm... prospects. Soon, the girl will ask him somewhere alone, and he'll go. If the rest of them don't have any luck themselves, then they'll follow."

The short bloke and the one in the military coat turn and saunter over to us. The taller one has bright blue eyes and a toothy, deranged grin. I'm doing my best not to look frightened, but these two have such an air of casual menace that I can almost see the violence and hunger surrounding them like a blackish cloud. As they approach, Mitchell gives a start of recognition.

Epaulet man seems delighted. "Mitchell, is that you?" he asks. "Been looking for you all day! I knew we'd find you in a fish barrel like this. How've you been, mate?" He rather too energetically pounds Mitchell on the back.

"Seth. Great to see you," says Mitchell, with no enthusiasm whatsoever. I've heard of this fellow, Seth: A dimwit; a perpetual henchman whose brains could never support any higher ambition. He was there when Mitchell was, as they call it, _recruited_. Thinking about that makes my skin crawl.

Seth nods toward his companion, who's pale and flat-faced, with the remainder of his thin, dark, oily hair combed back and plastered against his scalp. "Surely you remember Allen here. Say hello, why don't you?"

"Allen!" Mitchell seems genuinely pleased. "Wow. How long has it been, thirty years? I see you're still short."

The faint pockmarks along the edge of his heavy squarish jaw give Allen a weathered, primitive look. He wrinkles his considerable forehead at Mitchell and smiles. "And I see you're still ugly."

"You were always so charming," Mitchell says. "I've missed that." He clearly likes Allen more than he likes Seth.

"So. This was your downfall, eh?" says Seth, pointing at me. The nail on his extended finger is yellow and cracked.

Mitchell laughs, but without amusement. " _Downfall_? You're standing here talking to me, right? Do I look like I've fallen? Never better, in fact."

Seth must be too stupid to notice that I can hear him. He continues as if I weren't there. "I'm here to check up on you. See how you're getting on. You-know-who sends his regards. He's allowed as how he'd like to have you back, but between you and me, you can stay here 'til she stakes you. Loyalty has its rewards, you know." He pauses, unsubtly watching Mitchell's face for any sign of a reaction, but he gets none. "I like rewards," Seth explains.

"Congratulations. I'm so thrilled for you," Mitchell says, sounding bored. "We'll be off now. Hope you enjoy the party." He makes a very subtle gesture of dismissal, a slight raise of the chin, a small, casual flick of his hand.

Seth responds as if it's a direct order to clear out. "Oh we certainly will," he leers, "See you around." Obediently, he makes his way into the crowd. Allen raises his heavy eyebrows, gives us a casual wave, and pivots on his heel to follow. The other two members of their group are nowhere to be seen.

* * *

It's sickening. They are brazenly stalking humans. How could I ever have missed something this obvious?

"Can't you do anything?" I ask.

"What would you like me to do?"

Nothing comes to mind. They haven't actually caused any trouble. Confronting them would create a scene.

"I don't know. But we can't just let them go around picking people off, can we?"

Mitchell has his arm around my waist, but at this he turns to look me in the face, brows wrinkled in that way that tells me he's going to say something I don't want to hear. When he puts his hands on my shoulders, his grip is tighter than it needs to be.

"Listen. I don't know how many vampires there are, hundreds of thousands maybe, but all of them, _all of them_ are dangerous. There's only one of me, and only one of you. Do you think any vampires would take kindly to me telling them to stop feeding? I can choose for myself, but how could I possibly make them do it?"

"Wouldn't they do what you told them? They look up to you, don't they? "

"Doesn't matter. I might as well tell them to grow tails, or cure cancer."

Seth, his mates, Mitchell, Grant, Cutler, even reluctant, gentle Robbie: all killers. I knew this. I think of Stephanie and Jenna: ripped to shreds. The unsuspecting fellow in the suit, thinking he's getting lucky tonight: done for. The countless others who never had a chance, nothing but forgotten ghosts submerged in deeper and deeper oceans of blood.

I keep Mitchell out of the way, so I'm safe. I'm to be Cutler's dig at Herrick, retaliation for some wrong committed by one murderer against another, and I reckon Seth won't touch me because he'd rather Mitchell didn't come back to Bristol. Humans are of very little consequence to vampires, nothing but bargaining chips. And snacks.

I am not at the top of the food chain, nor is any other human in this place, or anywhere, really. I knew this in theory, but it's another thing entirely when it's happening in front of me. Whatever Mitchell does, it's barely a drop in the bucket. The rest of them will carry on as they always have. We can't make them stop.

Now I want very badly to go home.

* * *

Mitchell closes his eyes and his jaw tightens, a muscle twitching at his temple. He exhales loudly. I have the impression he's been both expecting and dreading this conversation for quite some time.

"Tell me, where did you meet your first vampire?"

"That was different."

"No, actually, it wasn't. I was there, remember?" He presses his lips together, biting back harsher words. When he speaks again, his tone is patient but insistent. "I'm not trying to scare you, but knowing what's out there doesn't change anything. Remember when you didn't know there were vampires? It wasn't that long ago."

He pauses, arms crossed, and looks at me pointedly until I give a reluctant nod. " _There were vampires_ ," he says.

Yeah. Okay. I get it.

The vampires are a constant threat, like a bomb falling or an earthquake or a random bus that runs you over. They are dangerous and ordinary. They eat kebabs, wear socks, tell jokes, drive cars, take baths, watch television. And they kill people. Some of them are thundering arseholes. Some speak with a stammer. And this one, standing beside me: while he was waiting with that pained expression for me to answer him, I wanted to kiss each of his closed eyelids. Darkness and light spiral into grey. The world drops its mask and bares razor-sharp fangs. It always had them, I just never paid attention.

"I'm being unreasonable, aren't I?"

"Josie, we're here for our friends. We've all worked for this. Can we just be people tonight? Please?"

It's not only our friends' night to see all their work unveiled, it's Mitchell's night. He's built most of the set for James and Albert's performance. He's an uncredited (okay, invisible) model in several of their frame-in-frame photographs; he's stretched canvases that are now hanging in the exhibit, he's cleaned paintbrushes, developed film, swept floors, and done countless errands. He is proud of what they've accomplished, and excited to see what people think of it.

I resolve not to be frightened off. Another glass of wine, then.

* * *

It's very crowded. Music swells and wanes. Aroma of perfume, patchouli and grass. Everyone's skin glows as if lit from inside.

Mitchell stands at the edge of the room as if he's looking over a precipice. Soon Albert joins us, his eyes crinkling in greeting. He's brought us glasses of cheap wine, which we gratefully accept, and introduces us to several of his friends. We forget their names immediately. They are all giddily charming, dropping bits of gossip and laughing, pointing out faces in the crowd. The familiar Japanese performance artist and her rock star boyfriend. A towering, deep-voiced platinum blonde in stiletto heels and a sequined gown. Quiet dark-eyed young men with sketchbooks. Conservative, serious, business-suited men, always two or three at a time, all carrying spiral-bound steno books. Ethereal pale-skinned girls drifting by in their floaty black dresses. Suede and denim. Kohl and glitter and hairspray. Feather boas.

Blast it. Here's Roger and Lydia. Albert greets them effusively, and suddenly there is someone he simply must speak to on the other side of the room. As Albert slips away, I smile insincerely at Roger. "How nice to see you," I lie.

Mitchell looks pointedly at Roger and then at me. I give the slightest nod. _Yes, that's him._ Instantly, Mitchell changes into someone else. He's somehow taller. The angles of his face sharpen, and his expression turns serious, though there's a trace of detached amusement in his almost-smile. The green in his eyes fades to flinty brown. His chilly, hypnotic gaze reminds me of a panther's, or a cobra's. You can't look away.

"Pleased to meet you," he says, in a voice I've never heard before, all empty charm and shiny reflective surface.

Roger seems uncharacteristically alarmed. "And you are...?" he asks, with a hint of panic.

"Mitchell." He offers his hand. At the same time, I see him look into the distance behind Roger, surveying the room. Our eyes lock for a brief instant, long enough for him to let me know he's still in there, and knows exactly what he's doing. It does little to relieve the shiver running down my spine. There's nothing Roger could do or say that would affect him at all. Roger could be an insect, or a mote of dust. Mitchell can smile, shake his hand, exchange pleasantries, or he can kill him where he stands. It's all the same to him.

Mitchell turns back to Roger and Lydia and gives a glittering, poisonous smile. "And who's this lovely girl?"

Lydia's eyelashes are coated in something sparkly. Her dark curly hair haloes her face and cascades in waves to the middle of her back. She's in a silky pale blue gown that resembles the robe of a saint in a medieval painting. The air around her smells of clove and vodka.

Roger begins to blather nervously. "This is Lydia. Lydia, of course you know Josie? Do you remember the first time we met, when she was going by Vera? That's something we did for fun. Different names _feel_ different, don't you think? To me, 'Vera' seems like an old chanteuse, and 'Josie' sounds like a milkmaid."

I scowl at him. "'Josephine' is an empress."

"Mmmn. Yes. Right, of course."

Lydia tugs on my sleeve. "Josie, you must come and see our latest! You won't even believe it. I'll give you a hint." She leans toward my ear and stage-whispers, " _No costumes_!"

It takes her a few moments to sort herself and resume standing a reasonable distance away from me. For the sake of conversation, or whatever this is, I answer, "Is that so? How... fashionable."

"We've had a few old biddies get up and walk out saying it's filth. You'll love it!" She is slurring her words and giggling like a loon. "Excuse me, I need the toilet," she mumbles, and totters off.

I look anxiously from Roger to Mitchell, whose expression is unreadable. _Stop it_ , I think at him. Perhaps he's noticed he's frightening me, or has had enough of frightening Roger, because he puts a hand on my shoulder and says, "How about I go and get us another drink? Back before you know it." He heads into the crowd. Message delivered. Roger had better watch himself.

James waves from across the room, catching Mitchell's eye. To my great relief, they head for the bar together.

"Nice chap," says Roger, though there's a shell-shocked look in his eyes. "How'd you meet?"

"Long story."

"I hope he's good to you, and that he makes you happy."

"He is and he does."

Sidestepping the queue for drinks, James has taken Mitchell by the hand and is making the rounds, stopping at each little knot of people. There is much handshaking and embracing. Mitchell has dropped his larger-than-life act, and is again guarded and shy, gazing at the floor, hands in his pockets.

Roger touches my arm.

"It's good to see you," he says. "Are you alright? You don't seem yourself."

"Whatever do you mean? I'm fine, thanks." I'm not hanging on his every word, that's what I think he means. Perhaps I'm being a little unreasonable. I'm on my third glass of wine, and that's after the bottle I'd split with Mitchell at home.

"What have you been up to?"

"Oh you know. The usual. "

"No I don't really. You've become a complete cypher. Over the past few months you've stopped answering the telephone, and on the rare times you do answer, you cut conversation short. It's like you've died and been replaced with a shifty-eyed stranger with nothing to say."

"I hardly think you've any reason to be complaining about my lack of chattiness. I'm just not at your beck and call."

"I never wanted you to be. "

"Oh please. The whole time we were together, it was me along on _your_ ride. You made all the decisions. _You_ were the one who left-you found yourself a newer and shinier toy. Once you were gone, I was nobody again. It took me a very long time to get over it. But I don't need you anymore, and thank God for that."

Roger covers his eyes, then massages the side of his face as if he's been hit. He bends closer to me so he can lower his voice. "I didn't realize you were still so angry. I was sure you'd understand it was the right thing for you, too."

Dots of light are spinning round the room, reflected from the glitter ball near the stage, making my head swim. My face is getting hot. Emboldened by liquor and resentment, I say, "I understood no such thing. You always told me what to be, how to be. _And I liked it!_ I only wanted to please you. You taught me so much, but when you left you took it all with you."

"No. I didn't." It's as if I've unjustly accused him of murdering kittens. "Don't blame your insecurity on me, Josie. Look, I'm sorry it happened the way it did. It might have looked like I left you for her, but it's not true. We both needed a push. You grew away from me too. I just noticed it first. "

"That's revisionist history. I don't believe you. Because, to me, it looked like you left when I had nothing left for you to use."

Roger sounds quite aggrieved now. "Josie, what am I supposed to say? If I say I think you can take care of yourself, that you're stronger than you think, then I'm patronising you. But I'm making you into some kind of victim if I say that you're right, I kicked you when you were down..."

"I rather think you did."

"Okay, perhaps I could have handled it better. But you are _not_ a helpless damsel and you know it. You've far too much steel. I never kept you from doing anything you wanted to do."

I light a cigarette, take a drag, and stand tipsily with my eyes closed, trying to identify the music echoing through the huge room. The acoustics in here are dreadful, and I can't make out the song over the roar of dozens of conversations at once. Maybe it's the wine and the noise, but the floor seems unsteady. You really shouldn't try and stand with your eyes closed when pissed and in stiletto heels. For balance, I hold on to Roger's elbow, nearly burning a hole in his shirt.

I may be a tiny bit drunk, but I have to admit he's got a point. To be honest, since we broke up, my life has been nothing short of astonishing. The world is several orders of magnitude more beautiful, more cruel, more ridiculous, than he will ever know. I wish I could tell him.

Still holding onto Roger's arm for stability, I pat him on the hand. "All right. I had a bad time of it after you left. I've been so incredibly angry at you, and it's been hard for me to get past it."

He brushes ash off his sleeve. "I understand that. I'm sorry, I really am. It wasn't fair to leave you with a broken foot and no prospects. How is your foot, by the way?"

What nerve. I thought I was finished being angry at him, but once again I'm working up a nice hot steaming fit of righteous pique.

"Damn it, Roger. You couldn't just let it lie, could you? You're NOT my only prospect, you condescending bastard. I'm doing fine. I've got a job, friends, a life. I'm good."

"Good. And...and...and... I didn't mean it like that." He's turned bright pink, and is backpedaling as fast as he can. "I'm happy for you. You deserve nothing but the best. That bloke had better treat you well, or...or..."

"Or what?" I fix him with what I hope is an indignant glare, but I can't hold it for long.

I grind out the end of my cigarette with my shoe. Its sole is so thin I can feel the hot ember right through it. Roger's foot, only a few inches away from the discarded fag, is half again as large as mine. I'd forgotten how huge his feet are. Wait. Where's the other one?

It's hard to suppress a giggle, as I've just realized that Roger is standing like a splay-legged giraffe, his legs at a nearly ninety degree angle. He looks ridiculous, like he's trying to cross a small brook and is stuck with a foot on either side. Passers-by are giving him odd looks, but he couldn't care less - he has a perfectly good reason for what he's doing: it's because he's so much taller than I am, and this way he doesn't tower over me while we're talking. It's considerate, silly, and oblivious, all at the same time. His thoughtless, petty little digs are not enough to sustain any serviceable outrage.

He's still trying to smooth things over. "I just meant... You and your new friend should come see us sometime. We'd love to have you. It would be great to catch up."

My anger deflated, I smile and say, "I'd love that. Ring us sometime, we'll get together. " Perhaps it's the wine.

Lydia totters to Roger's side. "Hallo! Back again. What'd I miss?" she says.

"Nothing much, love." says Roger. "We're just watching the world go by."

She is distracted with something in the corner. I touch her arm and say, "It was great to see you again. Oh, and here's Mitchell with my drink. Bye for now!"

* * *

Mitchell takes up a position near James and Albert's exhibit to help answer questions about the work, and to make sure nothing gets damaged or stolen. People are as curious about him as they are about the art. I've never seen him come closer to blushing as when he's asked if he and I are "an item."

"Are you an artist too?" someone asks Mitchell. "Musician? Writer?"

"No, I just help out."

"Come on, really? I thought we all had an opus hidden away somewhere."

"I don't. I'm happy just to be here. Not interested in making any great statements. I don't have that much to say. I'd rather listen."

"Everyone has some kind of ambition."

"Perhaps. What's yours, then?"

And they tell him. And tell him.

I overhear him talking about one of the paintings. "I love how this curves round like that, and the colors are really intriguing." He points to a corner of a canvas painted with pink and purple squiggles. "This reminds me of guts. But in a good way. No, really. Gutsy."

Nice recovery there. I've only ever seen that expression on his face when he's mastered a chord on the guitar, or come up with a difficult answer in the crossword.

After listening to four or five nearly identical conversations, I begin to tune out. He waves me off apologetically, saying it would probably be dull for me to stay when there's so much out there to see.

He's going to be at it for hours. They must all be telling him their life stories one year at a time. I wander around, look at the art, listen to the music, catch up with old friends.

* * *

The people in front of the stage are only a little quieter than everyone else circulating in this enormous room. It's a good thing this piece doesn't have any dialogue. While Mitchell keeps watch over their paintings and photos, James and Albert are performing.

They pass a crystal goblet between them, filled with something red. Albert dips his finger in the glass and draws on James' bare chest. "YES" he writes, in three inch block letters. Then he dips both hands in and paints stripes across his own cheeks, like war paint.

There's a window in the middle of the stage, set so the audience can look through it, a regular wooden frame with a glass pane. James stands behind the glass. With a broad brush, he begins painting the glass red, one thick stroke after another, until he's no longer visible through the window. Albert waits on the other side of the glass. When James is finished painting, Albert taps on the window.

On the other side, James slowly becomes visible wiping at the paint, working until there's a clear area large enough that we can see his face. Albert presses against the other side of the glass with his hands, then his face, rubbing his cheek against it like an affectionate cat. James smiles and waves impersonally, like an official on a parade float. Albert grows frantic, pounding the window, trying to get James' attention, but James continues to wave obliviously. Is the glass going to break?

After Albert raps on the glass for several minutes, James finally appears to notice him. With a look of exaggerated concern, he watches as Albert blindly hammers at the window, then he shakes his head sadly. The barrage continues as James steps out from behind the glass, stands behind Albert, and taps him on the shoulder. Bewildered, Albert turns around to discover James standing there. They are still for what seems like a long time but is probably thirty seconds. With a clean white cloth, James tenderly wipes the red from Albert's face.

* * *

When I return, Mitchell is still in the same spot he was in when I left.

He tilts his head. "You look nice in that dress," he says. First time he's said anything about it.

"Are you having a good time?"

"Yeah. I've met so many people. "

"You must be exhausted. "

"Not at all. It's been really interesting. A woman Albert knows showed me a piece she made, it was like a box of sweets, only each of the sweets was a little sculpture that represented a deadly sin, like lust or gluttony, that sort of thing. They were very disturbing."

"They disturbed _you_? I find that hard to believe."

"I think it was the packaging that did it. It could've been chocolate."

"Doesn't sound like any chocolate I'd want."

"No, probably not." He smiles, and the somber angles of his face soften into cheerful arcs. "She seemed so normal, too. Aside from the black leather outfit. That was... rather severe, I thought."

"Sounds pretty far out to me. Anything else interesting? I saw you talking to a lot of people."

"A vampire came over, someone I didn't know, and asked me what I was doing here. Must have been one of Cutler's toadies. I told him I was working."

"Wonderful. We haven't seen enough of _them_ tonight, have we?"

"They do seem to come out of the woodwork around here. Oh, and I talked to a girl with big teeth and a guitar, who said she was a musician but only because she couldn't make enough money selling her paintings. I asked if she made enough money playing music and she said she didn't know yet. She plunked herself down on the floor and played a song. I never heard a voice like that, not a folksinger, not a rock singer, not an opera singer. Warbly and high and pointy, but somehow the right thing.

"And there was someone who said he was an artist, but he didn't paint or draw or write or sing, or anything. His work, all of it, is nothing but instructions for making art, like this." He fishes a small card from his pocket. It reads, "Give something away".

"He called them scores, like they're pieces of music. It's weird, but it sort of makes sense. I mean, why not?"

As I'm wondering just what we could give away, James appears and says, "Mitchell! Thanks for minding the shop for so long. You've done such a great job. Now circulate. Look around. Enjoy yourselves." He practically marches us back to the party, and waves us off, smiling like an indulgent uncle who's brought his charges to the park and now wants us to go play.

"Let's have another drink," I say to Mitchell. "What would you like?"

"Oh, anything is fine, really. I could have water from the tap." His cheeks are flushed, and reflected dots of light travel across his face, now casting shadows across his eyes, now making them shine brighter.

"Are you enjoying the party?"

"Immensely. I can't even tell you how happy this makes me. Everyone has so much to say. So many stories. One after another after another ...until now I've never been able to stay and listen." He bites his lip and looks away, but only for a second.

We're both transfixed by the human scenery. Spangles and swirling scarves and feathers and ruffles. Spectacles and sideburns. Faded blue jeans. Animated conversation, joking, flirting. Tangled hair and bare feet. Tall, tall shoes. Gorgeous knees and bare shoulders and perfume and spilled liquor. Mitchell watches raptly, as if the party guests are acrobats breathing fire or natives of a previously unknown continent. If I let him, I suspect he'd happily sit there forever, or at least until all the lights came up.

"I'd like to see some of the exhibits," I say. "Show me the chocolate sins."

"I think it's this way." We weave our way through the milling partygoers, arriving in a walled-off area with several display cases arranged in a row and an assortment of photos on the walls. The photos are of flowers and slices of steak and liver and tripe and twisted wire and assorted drapings of fabric. They are quite beautiful if you don't think very much about the materials.

The box of "sweets" is in its own case, each set tidily in brown fluted paper like a chocolate would be. They are grotesque indeed, the one labeled "Greed" an open slavering mouth with cracked, peeling lips and lolling purplish tongue, "Sloth" a loose spiral of fuzz matted with something grey and slimy, "Envy" a greenish-yellow globule like like a suppurating boil, surrounded by a pinkish crust, "Lust" a pinkish object that looks on one side like a shiny red strawberry, and on the other side like something veiny and fleshy, slightly wrinkled, the dots of the strawberry seeds transmuting to stubbly tufts of hair. And so on. They make me shudder.

"I see why you found them disturbing. Which is your favorite?" I ask.

"Hmm. I quite like lust, but that version isn't so appealing. Also sloth. Sloth is underrated, in my book."

"Good choice. Who doesn't like a bit of sloth?"

" _My_ sloth is much nicer than that," Mitchell says. "Hey, come see this. It's a photo of the actual artist." He stands in front of a large framed photo of a woman with a 1920s bobbed hairdo, half-nude, perched languorously on the edge of a bed, one arm outstretched, extending to the edge of the photo as if to beckon the viewer in. She's gazing into a mirror that's reflecting back another mirror, a familiar pattern of infinite regress. Her figure repeats, one behind the other, smaller and smaller, until out of the frame. She seems to be challenging the viewer to find the connection between this charming, if off-kilter, image and the rest of the (rather more visceral) work.

"She's inviting us into the picture isn't she?" Mitchell says

"Get you. So arty. Anyway, we're already in."

"Are we? I like it here."

Art and entrails together. Something for everyone.

He kisses me full on the mouth in this room full of people. We're in the corner, leaning against the rough exposed brickwork of the factory wall, and nobody even notices. The sound of the crowd and the throb of music blend into a gentle roar.

* * *

Back home, we collapse into bed. His hands are warm. One rests at the small of my back, giving off a faint vibration like a plucked string. With the other he traces over my hand, rests his fingers lightly in the crook of my elbow. I turn on my side and he wraps around me and we sleep, dreamlessly, deeply.


	11. Get Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't so easy. Is the bloom off the rose?

It's a weeknight and I have a couple of hours to kill. You could say I'm home alone.

Stephanie and I are stretched out on the couch, one of us at each end, sitting with heads propped on the overstuffed armrests, our knees aligning in opposite directions over the middle cushion. I'm in my pyjamas, and she, as always, is in a flowing white blouse and flared jeans. In general, I don't approve of shoes on the furniture, but I make an exception for ghostly footwear.

She nudges my elbow with her shoe. "Hey, what are you drinking?"

"Gin and tonic. Why?"

"I have an idea. Have a sip, would you?" She evaporates from her end of the couch and reappears right beside me. She presses the flat of her palm against my cheek and gasps. Her eyes go enormous. "Your drink. I think I'm tasting it!"

"Really? That's fantastic! " Her hand feels like cold air on my face, and I have an odd, fizzy sensation running down my spine. I've already been smoking for her. Why not drink for her too? "Shall I have another?"

"Of course you should! I mean, please do. But... but... only if you want one. Do you?"

I fix us another G & T. This is going to be fun.

When Mitchell finally comes home, smelling of beer and smoke and film developer, he finds us dissolving in giggles while Stephanie inexpertly paints my toenails red. Nail varnish is all over the rug and the floor and somehow on the bottoms of my feet.

He stands in the doorway, reluctant to enter the room. "Sorry, am I interrupting?"

I wish he would stop giving me that wounded look. I'm not fraternizing with the enemy-Stephanie is our _flatmate_. I shouldn't have to pick sides.

Stephanie waggles the empty gin bottle in his direction. "Too late for that!" It's the most she's said to him in weeks.

He picks his way toward the bathroom as if the flat is full of landmines.

* * *

It's frustrating - Mitchell and Stephanie barely speak. When she appears, he always finds a reason to be somewhere else. Their Chinese whispers and hide-and-seek games are so childish and ridiculous.

I am peeking over the pages of my paperback at Stephanie as she leafs through a pop music magazine. It will never be the right time to talk about it. Now will have to do. I take a deep breath and plunge in.

"You know, it's like an obstacle course in here. I can't have a conversation with Mitchell when you're here because he runs away. Why do I have to be the go-between? Why can't you ask him for the newspaper yourself? Are you still so angry?"

She sets her magazine down and frowns at the ceiling.

"I can't tell anymore. It's all twisted up." She sits up and leans toward me. Her tone could be mistaken for neutral, like a razor so sharp I don't notice the cut until the blood drips. "I think I hate him, actually. I hope he suffers. It would give me great pleasure."

It's so cold in here. I excuse myself to rummage about in the wardrobe for a cardigan, and come back to find Stephanie lying on the sofa grimly contemplating the cracked plaster wall beside the kitchen doorway. I can only blunder on.

"You won't believe me, but he's not evil. Whatever happened between the two of you, I think it made a difference."

"Yay. Bully." She waves a limp fist in the air. "Want to know what happened? He and his friend came into the flat _and killed us_. Don't you get it? It was horrible and disgusting and so many kinds of wrong. Me being here is all wrong too. I fucking hate it. Every time I see him, I think about how stupid I was to trust him. So fucking stupid."

"Not stupid. I reckon he was charming and nice to look at. If I met him in a bar, I'd probably do what you did."

"To be honest, I'd thought the two of them were ... er... together, if you know what I mean. When I mentioned that, he didn't get angry or anything, he just laughed. I should've known right then."

"When I first met him, Mitchell was anything but charming. Everything he said sounded completely mad, and he tied me to a bookcase."

"And yet you claim to love him. Why, exactly?"

It's still freezing. I try to shrink deeper into the woolly cardigan. My hands are balled up inside the sleeves for warmth. If only it had pockets.

"Because...because he makes me better. I make him better."

"An ego trip then? Sweet young thing redeems scary vampire? I see the appeal. Only one problem. He's not redeemed. He's just marking time."

"Time without killing anyone. That's better, isn't it? Or do you think since he's done awful things before, he ought to keep doing them? Would you rather he hurt me?"

"No, I guess not. Whatever."

Poor Stephanie. She's been so patient with me. Sod Empress Josephine. I feel like bloody Marie Antoinette.

* * *

Robbie drops by an awful lot. He'll come downstairs to show Mitchell a few chords on the guitar and stay here for hours drinking whiskey and playing music. Sometimes he brings stacks of Grant's records, mournful old country and western songs about lost love, crime and trouble, freight trains and flophouses. He loads them five deep on the record changer, so we hear five side-ones in a row, then flips the whole lot over at once to play all the side-twos.

Mitchell is polite and listens for a while. I can tell he's getting bored. But Stephanie absolutely adores the tragic songs: the one about the woman mooning over the photo of the man who left her for another, or the one about the man who'd go to the gallows rather than confess to a forbidden love affair. She sits with her eyes closed, holding a burning cigarette as the ash grows longer and longer, her brow creasing with drama as the music overcomes her.

Robbie is not adjusting well. He's pale and red-eyed and always looks haunted, his misery so thick you can nearly see the black clouds surrounding him. I think he visits us mainly to keep his mind busy with things other than blood and death. I'm not overjoyed that he and Mitchell spend so much time together. I'm not sure who is influencing whom. Although he sympathizes with Robbie's situation, Mitchell doesn't need to face another vampire's troubles along with his own.

Mitchell isn't the only person Robbie's visiting. Once, when I've left my job early on account of feeling ill, I find Stephanie curled up on the sofa with her head in Robbie's lap. He's doing his best to stroke her hair. Another morning when I've doubled back home because I've forgotten my wallet, he's already there, sitting in the armchair, his head buried in his hands, while she stands beside him and whispers in his ear. When they see me come in, he straightens and says he's broken a guitar string and thinks he might've left an extra down here, but he was just leaving. It's okay. If these two poor souls can bring each other any comfort at all, why shouldn't they?

One evening, after Robbie's gone, Mitchell rolls a cigarette, and mentions in passing that new vampires can't abstain for long without getting physically ill. Waiting too long between feedings leaves them twitchy and unpredictable. In only a day or two, Robbie would go into full-blown, hideous blood withdrawal. Mitchell made it more than a week.

Still, going without affects him more than he usually lets on. He doesn't say much, but it shows in small ways: bouts of irritability, long silences, nightmares, drunkenness. He likes to watch wildlife programs on television where the big cats stalk and devour antelopes and zebras, but he changes the channel if I come in. I wish he could just stop being a vampire. We manage.

"You're not so new, so you're alright, aren't you?"

He sets the finished cigarette on the orange ashtray and examines his fingernails. "I'm holding it together okay, yeah? Do I seem twitchy to you?"

"Generally not."

" _Generally?_ That's really great. Generally. I was hoping for a more ringing endorsement. I think I'm pretty mellow these days."

I stifle a laugh. I'd never call him mellow, though compared to what he was, he's made tremendous strides.

* * *

Grant and Robbie have popped by with another bottle of foul-tasting whiskey. Robbie is quite excited.

"We've g-g-got a gig!"

"Congratulations!" Mitchell claps Robbie on the shoulder. After a pause, he frowns. "Now, how does that work? What about all the... considerations?"

"We can play at this bar, a vampire owns it. No f-f-feeding allowed on premises. Dennis doesn't want to have his club shut down or lit on fire. Most of the acts are humans but everybody n-needs a place to hang out and cut loose sometimes. We're opening for the Warlocks."

"Never heard of 'em," Mitchell says. He hands jam jars to Robbie and Grant, keeping one for himself.

"They're from America. Grant knows the k-keyboard player. I hear they draw an interesting crowd."

Grant pours three fingers of whiskey into his jam jar. "If by interesting you mean nearly inedible. Kinda unhealthy. Full of preservatives and artificial colors and flavors."

Stephanie appears, probably because she's heard Robbie talking. She rolls her eyes at Grant and makes the snorting sound that means she's annoyed. "That's disgusting."

Grant smiles broadly, showing his large, perfect teeth. "Just telling it like it is."

"It would be nice if you kept that to yourselves."

"Yeah, have a little consideration," says Mitchell. He pours himself and Robbie each a two-finger shot.

* * *

Stephanie is overjoyed for Robbie. "You must be so thrilled to be playing a show!"

"Only thing that makes it worth s-s-sticking around."

"Sticking around? Where would you go?"

Robbie doesn't say anything. Grant narrows his eyes at him, looks away, and cracks a knuckle or two.

"It's gonna be really good. And the Warlocks are f-f-fantastic."

"Are they really warlocks?" asks Stephanie.

"Actually, I'm not sure. The d-d-drummer might be."

"I'd do damn near anything to hear your band play!"

"C-come hear us then."

"You know I can't leave. It's like falling down the plug hole. I can't even stay in your flat or I fade out and find myself back here."

"That's so unfair. After all, you already d-d-d..."

"Yeah, yeah. I died. They've sent me after him though. And it's him, or his things, or his... I don't know what... that I'm stuck with."

Despite the blustery, rainy weather, Mitchell decides it's an excellent time to go for a walk. Robbie's shoulders drop, but his expression stays carefully neutral. After the door closes, he catches my eye and shakes his head sadly. We both have to deal with this. His attention turns back to Stephanie.

"Well have _him_ take you then. He owes you doesn't he?"

"Owes me? I don't want anything from him. Nothing. Except to be away. When I see him I keep remembering things I really don't want to remember."

"Can't help you there." Robbie throws back his drink.

I am so tired of all this. "This is so silly. How about if _I_ take you? I can take him too, and stay between the two of you if he bothers you so much. He at least owes you that. Anyhow, I want to hear Grant and Robbie too."

If we go there by tube, I'll probably have to draw a line across the middle of the train carriage. I tip the rest of Grant's whiskey into the empty jam jar Mitchell's left on the table. It burns going down.

* * *

We've gone halfway round the world on the Underground, and have emerged in an area full of dodgy bars, strip clubs, and pawn shops. The show is in a dingy basement room, its door guarded by a couple of brutish looking men whom Mitchell assures me are vampires. We are right in front of the stage, a platform only a foot or two higher than the floor. My feet stick to the linoleum tile. Stephanie stands on my left and Mitchell on my right. It's like when I have to separate two six year olds in my dance class by placing a neutral child between them.

The bar is full of people with unnaturally tinted hair, pale skin, and very black clothing. Many bear ugly scars on their necks and arms. Some of them, or perhaps _most_ of them, are vampires. If everyone were human, it would be several degrees warmer in here.

Robbie stands unmoving with his bass slung low across his hips rock and roll style, head down, shaggy hair obscuring his face. I'm not sure if he knows we're there until he flashes us a crooked grin. His eyes linger on Stephanie for a long moment before he retreats behind his fringe. Grant beams at the audience from under a suede cowboy hat, flashing those amazingly white teeth. His cheeks seem too pink for a vampire's.

The singer finally arrives, smiling a smirky sort of smile where the corners of his mouth point down. He seems familiar: baby-faced but haughty, wearing a grass-green Edwardian drape jacket. He's got sunglasses on, though the room is so smoky I can barely see the bar from our perch near the stage. Half the people here don't need to breathe.

He adjusts the height of the microphone and looks out at the crowd. "Hi, we're the Grateful Undead." He gets a bigger laugh than he deserves. After the noise dies down, he says, "Only joking. Call us whatever you like."

I can't make out Mitchell's exact words above the general din, but his eyes have narrowed with dislike. He has to shout into my ear.

"That's _Nick Cutler_! Can you fucking believe it?"

I'm rather irked at Robbie for failing to mention this little detail. I want to flee in the worst way, and Mitchell appears to feel the same, because he's turned away from the stage and is surveying the room behind us, probably searching for an escape route, but we're out of luck. The only way out is at the back. To get there, we'd have to push, shove, wrestle, and wriggle through the tightly packed crowd. It wouldn't be subtle.

We'll be alright. It's fine if Cutler notices we're here. Why should he care? Anyway, we came all this way for Stephanie, and missing the show would be a tremendous disappointment to her. I try to sink behind the rather tall bloke standing in front of me. I have an excellent view of the back of his battered leather jacket and his platinum blond duck's arse hairstyle.

When the band plays, I do my best to forget my ill will. Cutler's singing voice is deeper than his speaking voice. He sings lead on the rock and roll songs, and Grant takes over for the more country and western ones. They play mainly covers: Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly. I've never heard a more threatening rendition of "Ring of Fire." Stephanie only has eyes for Robbie, who doesn't budge from his spot to Cutler's right.

The Warlocks are fantastic: dark, menacing and soulful in equal measures, the music filled with a spare droning that hums inside your brain long after the amps are turned off. They're not vampires, but I'd be hard-pressed to guess that on my own, since they all look pale and hungry, especially the androgynous lead singer and the tall, gaunt violinist. The songs are about drugs and violence, desire and loss. I plan to buy their records.

* * *

I'm impressed. I'm dazed. My ears are ringing. My eyes, already irritated by the dense smoke, sting even more in the chilly late-night air. I'm also underdressed. Mitchell notices I'm shivering and drapes his jacket over my shoulders; the tube station is a long walk from here.

* * *

The cry of terror is unmistakable.

"Oh, god. It's another one." Stephanie winks out of sight.

The scream rises and shreds at the end, fading into a ragged moan. We can't get to the station without going past. A shortish, thickset man, his eyes an unnatural black, pins a terrified girl against the wall of a brick building. Something about his combed-over hair looks familiar.

The abrupt silence is disturbing. Her eyes are wide with fear and surprise as Allen, hissing and snarling, forces her against the filthy wall.

"Don't worry, I'll be quick," he rasps.

Perhaps I'm only imagining the gentle popping sound of skin being punctured and the faint pattering of blood dripping onto the pavement. I have a sudden urge to hold my finger under the flow, catch a drop, and taste it. Just once.

The girl's eyes are empty like a slaughtered animal's. I will her to resist, but she is slack and hopeless. No sport for him, just a feed, a refueling. Streetlight reflects in the damp spattered blood, turning to flashes of white like little stars on the ground. Why won't she fight back?

Seth and the young-seeming blonde girl are just round the corner, looking bored.

"Get on with it Allen, we ain't got all night."

 _This is really happening. He's killing her. Right here. I'm not supposed to see this._ Her arm splays uselessly, reaching for help that isn't arriving.

I'm not even alarmed. Everything seems far away, as if I'm watching it on television, or through the wrong end of a telescope. It didn't seem real when Mitchell first broke into my flat either. I had to remind myself to be afraid.

The girl's abject terror yanks me back to the present. This can't happen. I finally manage to blurt, "Hey! Stop!"

Mitchell freezes in his tracks, comes to a decision, takes me by the elbow and tries to steer me in the opposite direction. I don't want him to.

"Come on, let's not get involved." He pulls at my arm.

Before I can argue, two unfamiliar men appear out of nowhere. One, with a handlebar mustache and a motorcycle jacket, walks calmly but swiftly to where Allen is draining the girl, takes a sharpened stick from his pocket, and jabs it right into Allen's back, burying a full two thirds of its length.

What happens next is the strangest thing I've ever seen: Allen begins to dissolve from the inside. He doesn't bleed, he doesn't cry out in pain; there's just a sound like the crackle of burning leaves and the sizzle of falling gravel. His skin dries and peels violently, blackening at the edges and blowing away like tiny shreds of burnt paper. For an instant I think I see the outline of his skull laid bare, then that too disintegrates into powder. Within seconds, his empty clothes collapse. Nothing is left but a heap of rags with a few wisps of dust drifting round it in the chilly breeze.

So this is how they die. They don't "pass away"; they are completely annihilated. Mitchell catches me when my knees buckle.

The girl is crumpled on the pavement, bleeding and in shock, but alive. Her clothes are covered in gritty grey-brown dust. The man in the leather jacket offers her a hand, and helps her up.

"Best have that looked after, miss. I'll get you to a doctor."

"Th-thank you." Her voice is barely audible.

After making sure I can stand on my own, Mitchell turns away, his arm extended like a crossing-guard's to shield me from the two strangers.

The second man has downy blond hair receding in front but pulled into a ponytail, and the sort of face that looks like it's already been flattened with a rock. He advances on Seth, who's still staring goggle-eyed, first at the dusty pile of clothes on the pavement where his friend had been a minute earlier, and then at the man who killed him, and who is now supporting the bleeding girl and slowly walking her down the street, away.

"Hey, wotcha do that for?"

The blond man doesn't answer. Instead, he hits Seth, hard, in the face.

"Ow! And that? What gives?"

The reply is another blow to the face, which slams him against the wall. I've hit a wall like that before, and came to rest staring into implacable, reptilian eyes. That empty stare finally convinced me to be afraid.

Even with his back pressed to the bricks, Seth is distracted by the small puddle of fresh blood. The man shoves him to the ground and kicks him in the ribs and head, over and over. It's a long time before he's done. He walks in a circle around the prone figure, inspecting the damage.

Seth is lying on the ground coughing, the visible half of his face covered in purplish-yellow bruises, blood (presumably his own) dripping from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Mitchell doesn't even _like_ Seth, but their shared history is more important than friendship. He steps between Seth and the attacker and crosses his arms. In the lamplight, his shadow broadens and lengthens.

"You'll be explaining yourself any minute now, won't you?"

The blond man crosses his own arms in defiance. "It's none of your business."

Mitchell looks as if he'd prefer to extract the answer by force. He's unearthed all his buried violence; his lips are drawn back in a kind of snarl, his brows low and sinister, a feral gleam in his eye. If I didn't know him I'd be petrified.

"He came here to see me and now you're kicking the crap out of him. So, yeah, it _is_ my business."

The attacker seems to consider this for a few moments, and decides that Mitchell very likely merits an explanation.

"We don't want anyone drawing the wrong sort of attention. I could've killed him, easy, but then he couldn't take our message back to his mates. It's this: All of them Bristol vampires need to stay the hell out of London. They've made enough trouble." He crosses behind Mitchell, crouches to pick up Seth's head by the hair, and brings his own face very close to Seth's.

"You don't seem very bright, so I'll use short words. Give up on your friend here. He's finished with you. He might go back to Bristol someday, or he might not. It's not our concern. But you? Get out. Now."

He looks into the street behind Mitchell, drops Seth's head, and nods a deferential greeting.

* * *

Cutler, in his slightly ridiculous green drape jacket, sunglasses perched at the top of his head, strolls up like a rooster in a henhouse, registering the beaten-up Seth, the dusty heap of clothes that had been Allen, and the blond vampire now wiping his bloody knuckles on his trousers. When he sees me and Mitchell, his smirk tightens into a grimace.

"So lovely to see you again, Mitchell, and your lady friend, er, whats-her-name."

Mitchell is still standing protectively in front of Seth.

" _Nick_. Nice show tonight. Now I reckon it's back to your regularly scheduled irritating monologue. Go ahead, then. I'll wait."

Cutler takes no notice. He is uncomfortably close to Mitchell's face. His voice rasps a bit.

"I was sent here to monitor your activities. You've had one slip-up already, and we won't tolerate another. We don't know what your intentions are, if this is a permanent lifestyle choice or a temporary adventure. Are you still Herrick's man? If he sent for you today, would you go to him? We've no way of knowing. We do know that he made you and that you have been at his right hand for decades, that you've traveled together, fed together, run Bristol together. Why would you stop now, for some... housekeeping fantasy?"

Mitchell's expression doesn't change, but he takes a step backward. "You wouldn't understand, would you? Look, I'm not with him. I'm here. Since you dislike him so much, you ought to appreciate that."

"Appreciate it? You spoiled brat. Herrick's made you what you are, and you blithely take that gift for granted, as if all the things he's taught you haven't made your survival, _your very existence_ possible. Instead, here you are, playacting with the humans as if none of it matters, as if you could possibly live as one of them. You have no gratitude, no respect. You're betraying him, and all of your kind, and you're fooling yourself."

His voice rises, the hoarseness dissipating.

"I lost my maker early on, and I've had to live with the consequences ever since. If I had the chance to do it over, I'd have worked to learn his lessons sooner, to suck up every drop of wisdom and experience I could get from him. I certainly wouldn't chuck it all away to consort with some human, who, if you don't kill her first, will soon shrivel up and die like the rest of her species."

Mitchell rolls his eyes with contempt.

"Keep your jealous whinging to yourself, it's not very becoming in a grown man. What's between me and Herrick is no one's business but ours. I'm sure your maker never gave a toss about you." He takes a step backward and looks Cutler square in the eye.

"If you need guidance from someone with more experience, I'll give you some. Ask yourself this: Is it all worth it? When you've just fed, and you're sitting there glowing with fresh blood, what are you thinking about? Is it the way the girl begged for her life before you ripped her neck open? The look the old man gave you before his eyes clouded over? I would guess not.

"All you're thinking about, while you lie in bed alone, because you're always alone, aren't you, is when the next drink will be, how much you will like it, and how bad the pain will get if you wait too long. Are you ever happy? Is anyone ever glad to see you? Will anyone think about you, even for a moment, after you're gone? Ask yourself those things."

Cutler makes a great show of checking his wristwatch. "Are you quite finished? Because I've got a date waiting for me."

"Yeah. We'll be on our way now. Take your minions and piss off."

Seth totters to his feet unsteadily and leans against the wall. One of his eyes is swollen shut. His hair is matted with blood. I can almost see the cartoon canaries chirping round his head.

"Seth, go home," Mitchell says. "Tell Herrick... actually, I don't care what you tell him. Just go home. Don't come back."


	12. Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a person you think you know turns out to be a stranger.

I saw a vampire die tonight. He was ripping a girl's throat out when it happened.

 

 

He'd once smiled at me and shook my hand. Another vampire ran him through with a stake, and he dissolved into ash and dust.

Another vampire (whom I admit I don't much like) was beaten by more of his own kind, thrown to the ground, and kicked in the ribs over and over. I remember the wet thunk and crunch of boot on bone. He seemed to smile at me as he licked his split and bleeding lip.

Before tonight, this was someone else's story, but now I'm part of it. This is my story too.

* * *

The underground is nearly empty. Whenever the carriage doors open, a clammy draft blows in. Mitchell's jacket is draped over my shoulders to ward off the chill. It's heavy and damp from the London mist, and smells of stale smoke and the burnt-sugar perfume of loose tobacco. Cold air filters into the space between the leather and my back.

I wish he'd talk to me but he's off in his own world. My hand reaches for his and he absently takes hold of it but never looks up from the floor. He has that pained expression again; I reckon he's remembering something he'd rather not. Gathering himself, he exhales shallowly and turns to face me, with a gentle, wide-eyed look that normally makes me melt, and clasps my hand in both of his. They're cold, like ice cream.

"You've had a bit of a scare, haven't you? Are you all right?"

"I don't know." I'm not going to melt. I'm too chilled.

"Here, this might help." He holds out a small silver flask of the fiery whiskey he and his mates like so much. Normally I'd be uninterested, but tonight I take several swallows before giving it back. It tastes like smoky solvent and burns my throat going down.

A shiver begins somewhere beneath my ribs, but ebbs away as the liquor does its job. Mitchell awkwardly kisses the top of my head. Soon our only motion is from the rhythmic swaying of the train. The shock is wearing off. My brain works again.

"I didn't realize I was so frightened."

"Yeah. It creeps up on you, doesn't it?" There's a funny look on his face, like he's just tasted something he didn't expect.

"Why? Am I stupid?"

"Of course not. That's a survival instinct. It's helped you."

"Has it?" I'm still queasy. I can't forget the strange hollow squelch of the stake going into Allen's back, and the sight of his skull disintegrating, the blackened skin shredding and blowing away. "Oh! Jesus, Mitchell. Your friend just died. Are  _you_  all right?"

"Yeah, fine. It happens. You get used to it."

I'm still not all right, not at all, but I am confused. Albert had tried to do that to Mitchell,  _who was going to let him_. Beside me, he is reassuringly solid.

"Really? You're not even a little bit angry?"

"Why should I be?"

"Erm, because he was a mate of yours, and he was just killed right in front of you?"

He shrugs. "There's nothing to be done for it. Now he's gone. End of story."

"Doesn't bother you in the slightest, then?"

He shifts in his seat, adjusting the flask in his back pocket. When he's done, he stretches his legs and leans back as if he's ready for a nap. His gaze is fixed on the adverts above the carriage windows.

"Not much. There's no way to know how long you'll be a vampire - you could die today, or you could live for a thousand more years. Imagine doing a vampire's job for a few centuries. It's a bit of a relief when you see an end to it."

What looks like a horror might be a mercy. I still have so much to learn. I want to ask him: What happens to your brain after you die? Or your heart?

* * *

_It's good here with Josie. I have a job, and friends-almost a real life. But as long as I stay, I'll have hunger pangs: a hollow ache beneath the ribs; abrupt stabbing pains in the wrists, the neck, the ankles; a sore throat that no amount of tea can fix._

_I collect surplus energy when I find it, like smoke in the air. You find it anywhere the atmosphere is charged with excitement: sporting events, busy streets, angry mobs. At the end of a hard day, I can absorb tension from her like a sponge. She has no idea how much I need it. It flows in both directions: whenever she puts her mouth on me, she gets a taste of vampire, like salt in water. Can't be helped._

* * *

We've stopped at Grant and Robbie's place to congratulate them after the show. They are listening to crackly old blues records and smoking grass. Stephanie, who popped home before we got on the train, has been here awhile, and sits by Robbie cradling a glass of something clear with a slice of lime floating in it.

I'm trying to subtly hint that we should go, but Mitchell's ignoring me. We'd only agreed to come by for a minute or two, but he's full of questions for Grant: how well do they know the Warlocks, when is the next show, where has he played before, who else has he played music with. Please, no more. It's nearly two in the morning. I'm beyond exhausted.

Also, this room is where Mitchell killed Stephanie. Vampires don't seem bothered by such things, but I find it disturbing. I reckon Stephanie does too.

There's a knock at the door. It opens before anyone can answer, and Nick Cutler steps inside. He's still in the green velvet drape jacket he wore at the show, but his tall quiff has fallen a bit, plastering a couple of greasy curls onto his forehead.

On his arm is Lydia, nuzzling his ear and giggling. Bloody hell.

A strange ripple moves through the room. Mitchell is icy and tense, but says cordially that it's nice to see her again. Robbie smiles unconvincingly and stammers his hello. Grant gives a slow hungry grin that could be interpreted as the appreciation of a man at seeing a pretty girl, if I didn't know otherwise. His teeth gleam.

Cutler ignores the mixed reception. His eyes flick toward Stephanie, and I might have seen a corner of his mouth twitch before he breaks into a wide grin.

"I'd heard the party was here!"

Grant and Robbie keep taking sneaky glances at Lydia's neck. Oh, God. Oh no. No. No. Mitchell and I exchange looks. I've got the picture.

Lydia accepts a drink from Robbie. She gazes up at Mr. Cutler like an adoring groupie and whispers in his ear. She reaches into his coat pocket to search for something but doesn't find it.

For half a minute Lydia looks round the room, with its worn tapestries, collections of empty liquor bottles, enormous hifi speakers, and minimal furniture. Her great dark eyes widen in shock and she gives a start violent enough that Cutler, who's been deep in conversation with Grant, stops droning on for a second to see what's the matter.

"Josie!" Lydia squeals. "Is that you? I can't believe it!"

To my surprise, she runs over to hug me. I step backward as soon as she lets go. My dress now has a stain on it that matches her lipstick. This is very bad. We've got to get her out of here.

I'm in no mood for games tonight, but I have no choice. I plaster on my phoniest smile.

"Lydia, how lovely to see you. Why are you here?"

"Josie, baby, great to see you too. Since we both had shows tonight, I met Nick after work. What are you doing with yourself these days?"

"Oh, same old thing. Working, mostly."

"What is it you do again?"

"I teach ballet."

"Yeah, yeah, right. I  _did_ know that. Did you know Roger and I are going to New York next month? Someone wants to film our show, so they're meeting to discuss the details. Let the men sort those things. I find it all so boring, don't you? "

"How, and where, is Roger, by the way?"

"Oh who cares? Nick here is loads of fun, and he's great in bed. Roger is a big boy. He can take care of himself, can't he?"

"I suppose he can." She really doesn't get Roger. If she treats him well, he'll give her anything she could possibly want: clothes, drugs, travel, stardom. She's throwing all that away for what she thinks is a couple of lines of coke and a shag. I hope that's all she gets.

I'm not a mean person. I have to do this.

"You know, Lydia, you're an idiot to be here with Nick. What if Roger saw you? If you cross him, you'll lose everything - even your job. It's not like he's particularly in love with you, you know."

"He does so love me. He's written me poetry."

"Oooh. Has he? And here you are, running off with the first flash arsehole to coke you up and get up your skirt. That's some gratitude you're showing there."

"Gratitude? What do you mean? I don't owe him anything."

"You don't? Fine. You got your job because you're so bloody talented. You could just start your own company, do all the choreography, hire the dancers, schedule the tour dates, arrange the publicity. You know, the boring stuff. Oh, wait, you don't have to! He's done all that for you already. All you have to do is show up, look pretty, and screw him every once in awhile. Think you can do the rest of it? Go on then, do it."

"I can't believe you're talking like this. What's come over you?"

The record has finished and the other conversations in the room by have stopped. Everyone is staring at me.

"Nothing's come over me. I'm trying to help you out. Do you think Roger gives a toss about you? Don't kid yourself. I know him as well as anyone. He loves the idea of you, don't get me wrong. But you, the person? Forget it. You're just the girl, an interchangeable cog, an accessory."

Her cheeks flush."No wonder he dumped you. You're a colossal bitch. "

"You think so? Ask me how I know all this. Go ahead. Ask."

I wait for a couple of heartbeats. I know she's not going to ask.

"I know because he told me. 'Lydia doesn't matter,' he said. He wanted me to come back. He said you were shallow. He thinks you're a cheap slut."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry. A manky whore. Those were his exact words." I'm trying to save her life.

Lydia flushes bright pink. Her giant dark eyes blur with tears. "You're lying, you jealous, washed-up has-been. He never said that. I don't have to listen to you."

"Nobody is making you listen. But you know I'm right." (Am I taking a bit too much pleasure in this? Perhaps.) "And you know what I told him? I said, _she's all you deserve._ "

Cutler turns from Grant to slip a protective arm around Lydia. "Mitchell, could you ask your little paramour to stand down? She's upsetting my girl here."

"She can hear you perfectly well. Ask her yourself." Mitchell jams his hands his pockets, stone-faced.

Cutler bares his weasel teeth at me.# "Excuse me, erm, Jessie, is it?"

"Josie."

"Ah. It's Lydia's business who she spends time with, isn't it? Could you cool it with the insults?"

"I'm only telling her the truth. Honestly, I don't care what she does, but I know very well who she's involved with. I'm giving her fair warning."

Lydia's had enough. She slides out from under his arm, tips up the last of her drink and gathers up her coat and handbag. "Nick, I'm sorry but I can't stay. I really don't feel welcome here. Perhaps another night? When we can be alone?"

She's out the door before he can stop her. Robbie and Grant are visibly disappointed.

Cutler shakes his head and tuts as if I'm a naughty child. "That was awfully clever of you. Now you've deprived everyone of my housewarming gift. These poor blokes are left high and dry."

"I'm sure you'll all get over it."

"A bit of disappointment builds character, I suppose. I'll be going now. The girl isn't safe out there by herself. Nice show tonight, boys." He turns and winks at Stephanie. "Mitchell, be sure to thank your lovely ghostie friend for coming out to see us. I look forward to hearing of your future exploits."

After the door slams a second time, Mitchell lights a cigarette. He looks annoyed.

"Nice going. We should say goodnight as well. It's late and we've both got work in the morning."

Stephanie sighs loudly. She'll be waiting for us downstairs.

* * *

_I lay my head on Josie's chest and listen to her heart. Its music comes with pictures: eyes rolled back in fear, teeth sinking into flesh, welling blood. But not hers. Not hers. My hands open and close, twisting the bedsheet into knots. I rest on the surface and her pulse sings to me. The little tease. I want to go deeper. Need to. My insides tense and hollow: hunger, thirst, desire, rising. Clouds of red. Everything reaches for her. She sits up._

_"Hey there." With a smile, she climbs on top of me and presses my shoulders into the mattress. Her breath is hot in my ear. "Don't you move. Lie back and think of England."_

_I make a sound that's somewhere between a hiss and a laugh. "Cheeky bint. I really ought to bite you." Which means I won't. Red fades to warm gold and aqua._

_"Or you could do this..." She guides my hand. We do what she wants. No fear. Good. It's good._

_She strokes my cheek and covers my neck and shoulder with slow, drowsy kisses before falling asleep. I feel better._

* * *

I've had one of those days. I seem to have lost a glove somewhere between home and work this morning. In the first class of the day, a four-year-old fell and sprained her wrist, and there was much drama and lamentation from both child and parent. I wore altogether the wrong shoes, ones I hadn't worn since I hurt myself, and now have a searing pain up the side of my foot and an inch-wide ladder in my best black stockings that started as a little hole near the toe and was up to my knee by lunchtime, when I discovered I'd left my wallet at home.

By late afternoon I am practically in tears. I ring Mitchell at James and Albert's with my tale of woe, and after work he comes to my rescue and takes me for drinks.

We arrive home to find Stephanie and Robbie huddled together on the sofa. He's bent nearly double with his face buried his folded arms. Her hand traces slowly across his back. She sees us come in, but doesn't speak.

Mitchell and I retreat into the kitchen to give them space. I take off these bloody shoes. It's such a relief to rest my sore foot. He puts on water for tea.

Stephanie's voice is filled with the forced cheer you'd use around someone who's gravely ill. "One more day. You can do that. You did two already. What's one more? "

Robbie sits up. "One more day? I don't know if I can t-t-take one more hour. "

"Of course you can. Stay here with me an hour. Then you'll have done it. Play guitar. Write me a song. Smoke some grass. Open that bottle of tequila you boys have been saving."

He looks awful. His eyes are more sunken than I remember, with deep creases at the corners. With an unsteady hand, he smooths his hair flat against his head.

"Grant said this was a b-bad idea. He was right. "

With a scowl, Mitchell turns away from me and begins the washing up from breakfast. The plates seem to clatter more loudly than usual.

Her tone rises in growing desperation. "Wait, Robbie! Do you want to play cards? We could play gin rummy. You used to like that."

He stares at her, slack-jawed.

"What?" Robbie blinks a few times and shudders, like he's been taken with a chill. "Gin rummy?" He contemplates this. "Sorry, love, don't think it'll help."

"There must be  _something_ we can do!"

"I've tried! It's so hard, you have no idea. My guts ache. I hear voices, and they're angry, and they say awful things to me. Sometimes I see faces."

"They're not real."

"They're as real as you are. Except they're m-m-mine. I've wanted you since that night at Freddie's, but I could never let on. And I could never have you. Always someone between us, Freddie or Jenna then. Now it's Mitchell. You c-c-come back to him, he sees your face, hears your voice, and not just in horrible starving fits, but all the time. It's n-n-not fair. You don't even like him."

"I like  _you_. I feel safe with you.  _You_  didn't kill me. "

His voice is nearly inaudible. "I wish I had."

"What did you say?"

He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his jaw as if bracing for a blow to the head, or a bullet. He speaks quickly, but each word is clear and distinct.

"I'm not safe. I would've killed you if I'd had the chance."

Stephanie recoils from him.

"I don't believe you."

"Believe me." With all pretense gone, he lets loose. His eyes are narrow and cruel. "I always look for someone enough like you: your size, your hair, your walk, your voice. And And when I kill her, I imagine it's you."

A look of horror spreads across Stephanie's face. She chokes on a breath she can't actually take.

Robbie stands up, faces away from her, and lights a cigarette. He holds it between thumb and forefinger and takes a forceful drag, like he's smoking a joint. He stares at the lengthening ash and doesn't bother to exhale. "I'd b-b-b-better go." A puff of smoke escapes with each stammered syllable.

"Please don't. You can't do anything else to me." She huddles alone in the middle of the sofa, frail and transparent, her arms hugging her body as if for warmth. I want to wrap her in a blanket and give her tea.

His eyes widen and then squeeze shut. "Oh God. You can't even imagine. I'm so disgusting. Over and over. Different ways: from the neck, from the arm, t-t-tear the clothes off, leave them on, while screwing, after screwing, before screwing. Let them scream or k-k-k-keep them quiet. And-and-and just like Mr. Cutler said, I have to … t-t-take them away after."

"Shut up. Shut up!" If Stephanie could turn any paler, she has. She rocks back and forth while staring into nothing. "I know what happens after."

"Yeah, I guess you d-d-d-do. I'm sorry. I can't take this anymore."

"Are you out of your bleeding mind?  _You_  can't take any more? Am I supposed to feel bad for you now?"

"No! Don't you understand? I can't be your friend. I can't stop k-k-k-ki- "

She cuts him off before he can say the word.

"-but if you leave then I'll be all alone."

"No. You won't." He fixes me with a pleading, hungry gaze. I can't meet his eyes for long, because they remind me of the terrible days when Mitchell first quit blood.

He stubs out the remains of his cigarette in the orange ashtray.

"I love you Stephanie, but I'm no g-g-good if I hurt you. I'm so fucking sorry. It's all ruined."

Stephanie dissolves and reappears at the far end of the couch, curled up in a ball, her knees nearly under her chin. I go and sit beside her as she trembles with fury and sorrow. It feels like a fluttering breeze.

A nasal voice sounds from the doorway. "What pathetic whingers! Someone ate her and it wasn't you, get over it." Cutler lets himself in. His timing is either inspired or atrocious, I'm not sure which.

"S-s-sorry Mr. Cutler. I'll t-t-try and get over it. I will."

"What you need, pal, is something to get you through the rough bits, don't you?"

Robbie isn't sure how to answer that. "I guess. If you s-s-say so. Is it alright if I go now?"

Cutler smirks and reaches inside his overcoat. "Why don't you stick around? I've brought refreshments." He's holding a corked flask filled with something opaque.

* * *

Mitchell slams his fist into the kitchen counter hard enough to make all the dishes rattle. "Not here. Get out. Both of you."

Cutler looks very pleased with himself. "All the self-deprivation has made you rather short tempered, hasn't it? True love not quite cutting the mustard? I'm here to help you out."

"Oh, knock it off. I'm not some fresh recruit you can manipulate by splashing a little blood. Do you really think that'll get to me?"

"In a word, yes. You're no better than we are, you're just hiding here and playing make believe. You may be the great John Mitchell, but if you're not being a proper vampire, are you really anything at all?"

Robbie clutches one of the mugs Mitchell's left to dry beside the sink. He holds it out like a beggar hoping for a penny.

Cutler gestures for him to set it down on the table, and tips the contents of the flask into the mug. I know what it is: metallic and savory, with a rapidly dissipating funk of meat and caramel. Robbie's eyes fade to black. And so do Mitchell's. He doesn't say another word.

"Drink it," Cutler says.

With black-hole eyes, Robbie looks at Stephanie, then at the floor. "No. N-not here."

Cutler narrows his eyes and turns to her. "Darling, help us out. Give him a little... er...visual aid. I know you can."

"No way! I won't do it. Piss off." The lights flicker. Everything in the room shakes. I didn't know she could do that. While Mitchell moves the full mug away from the edge of the table, one of the others slips off the counter and shatters. He curses and fetches the broom.

While looking squarely at Stephanie, Cutler hooks a foot around Robbie's ankle and yanks him off balance. He topples to the floor.

Cutler stands over him, feigning concern. "Oh, sorry. Did you fall?" He produces a stake from the pocket of his overcoat and kneels so he can hold it an inch or two above Robbie's chest. His eyes meet Stephanie's. "Look at him. He's suffering. He can't go on like this. I'm going to have to insist you help him. Or I'll put him out of his misery."

"Stephanie, just let him do it." Robbie's voice is flat and mechanical.

"No! You stinking loathsome horsefucking suppurating dirtbag bastard." She crouches on the floor, smooths Robbie's hair out of his face, and kisses him on the forehead. "Not you, Robbie." Her voice hardens. "Give me a second, you disgusting pig."

She vanishes and reappears in the form of her own horribly mangled corpse. Vampire food. On the floor, with Cutler's stake still pointing at his heart, Robbie inhales through his teeth. Tears run from the corners of his huge black eyes.

He rubs the back of his hand over his mouth. I can't tell if he's trying to hide something or wiping it away. "Oh God oh God oh God. Steph, I'm sorry."

Cutler daintily tucks the stake back into his overcoat, pulls Robbie up from the floor, and jams the cup into his hand. "Drink up. You'll thank me later."

Robbie drinks. When the cup is drained, he wipes his mouth on his sleeve, leaving a dark red smudge. Without a word he sweeps past Cutler and out of the flat. His footsteps on the stairs grow fainter, and somewhere above us a door slams.

"I'd say last call, Mitchell, but for you, we're always open."

"Get out of here before I kill you. If Josie weren't here you'd already be dead."

"Til next time then." And he's finally gone.

"You didn't have to spare him on my account," I say.

Mitchell finishes sweeping up the pieces of broken mug. He has to do it twice, because half of them spill from the dustpan as he carries it over to the bin.

He looks down at my bare feet. "Mind your step. Those fragments go everywhere. "

* * *

He lays his head over my heart and holds my forearm loosely so the pulse comes threading beneath his fingers. I breathe and he listens, his body taut with restraint and hunger. His touch arcs like a licked finger on a battery, at the wrist, the ankle, the upper thigh. My free hand is tangled in his hair. His eyes are empty and black. Here is where our desires meet: on opposite sides of the same door. We'll both stop short. Crossing the threshold would end us.

When his hands begin to shake and he stops breathing, it's time. Sometimes all we can manage is to disengage and retreat to opposite sides of the bed, but tonight we're okay. I'm incandescent with desire. He's ready with a smile and a wisecrack. There are things we can do for each other.

* * *

It's so dark. I don't know where I am. I touch his face but don't recognize him. I know him only by taste, salty and tannic and sweet. I've given him all I can.

 


	13. Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one takes Josie's advice although they really should, and Cutler has big news to share. 
> 
> Thanks, anyone who's still reading, and to Crazyidea-inc, WhiteHare, SunnyFla, Jac_E , and AquamarineJo.

Roger  flings open the studio door and strides in, trailing chilly air and agitation. I'm nearly ready to head home, but he paces back and forth across the small front office, getting in my way while I'm trying to prepare attendance lists and choose music for my morning class.

"We need to talk, Josie. Why did you tell Lydia horrible lies about me? You said that I called her a whore? That's fucking ridiculous, and you know it. And anything I did tell you was said in confidence."

I'm taken by surprise. What else did she say to him? How did she explain seeing me while she was out with Nick?

"It might sound mad, but she was in a seriously risky situation and I convinced her to get out. She could have been hurt."

"She never mentioned any such thing. What sort of situation, exactly? And if it was so risky, why were you there?"

"Don't worry about me. Worry about her."

"What could you possibly mean by that?" He crosses his arms and peers down at me, frowning. The overhead light outlines each hair in his furrowed blond eyebrows.

_She was going to be eaten._

I take the ragged stack of paper out of my clipboard to straighten it. "I was trying to stop her cheating on you, okay?"

He grins like he's just thought of a joke. "Yes, with a random grey-faced lawyer, very dangerous." The little snort at the end is the one he reserves for the poseurs and the hopelessly uncool.

Shit. There's no point in continuing this conversation; I'll only raise questions I can't answer. But now Roger is gathering steam. "Some kind of weekend bohemian, I gather. Bloody boring if you ask me, but that's her problem."

"But he's not just -- "

"--Listen, Lydia and I, we've never been exclusive. The world is full of experiences we don't want to miss. There's enough love to go round, so we don't need to ration it. She understands that. If she's cheating, what of it? So am I."

Of course he is. I'm relieved to discover that I don't care. "This one... how can I explain? He's bad news, Roger. Really bad. As in, 'Don't ever let him in your house' bad. As in 'Don't sleep with the same girl as him' bad. He's mixed up in some incredibly shady dealings." I replace the tidied stack of attendance sheets and hang the clipboard on its hook beside the office door.

"Are you saying he's a mobster?" I need to stifle an inappropriate laugh--he's only one letter off. "Again, I wonder how you'd know that. It's not my business who she's seeing. Or yours."

He lays a hand on my shoulder. I thought he'd managed to stop biting his nails but he's been at it again. "Honestly Josie, you need to move on. I'll never stop caring for you, so don't worry. Whatever happens, we're clear on that, right? Things don't end, they just change shape."

"Yes, Roger, they do."

"I hate when you roll your eyes at me like that." He frowns and rubs his forehead. "But now that you mention it, something's a bit off with her. I can't put my finger on it. We see other people all the time, and never keep secrets. But now, she won't say where she's going or when she'll be back."

"See, she doesn't want to tell you. One of these days she won't come back. Letting her go would be safest. The sooner the better."

"What? Don't be silly."

He shakes his head and gives me the smile where the corners of his mouth go down instead of up. Of course he doesn't believe me. I wouldn't believe me.

"Josie, love, is there something you're not saying? Something you want? Are you trying to break us up so I'll give you her job? It won't work. You had your chance and you blew it."

"Jesus, Roger. How can I make this any clearer? I'm really and truly over you. I don't want the job back, and for all I care, you and Lydia can go sleep with an entire troupe of circus performers. Each. But I don't want you dead. As long as she's involved with those criminals and killers, you're not safe."

I've got my coat on. Roger follows me out. He waits while I lock up.

"Oh, I get it. Is Lydia cramping your style? Are they friends with that bloke you're seeing? You know, he gave me a bad feeling, with those creepy eyebrows and that phony smile." Roger leans against the wall, hands in his pockets, squinting at the sky as if he's trying to do sums in his head. "And if his mates are so tremendously, incredibly, unbelievably scary, why are you still dating? Hmm? Really, Josie. The drama. Is it necessary?"

My head is pounding. Nobody is better than Roger at sending me into a frothing rage. They can both get stuffed. I feel filthy and immoral but he's forced me into a corner. "I guess you're right. There's nothing to worry about. Not a thing. What was I thinking? I should have left her there with Nick the grey-faced lawyer."

He misses the sarcasm. "You really hurt her. Promise me you'll apologize."

"Fine. Sure. Okay."

* * *

_They're gorgeous, Mitchell, " James says, "you should do more. You've quite an eye."_

_They are black and white photos of things that have been used and abandoned. A plaster in a dustbin with a blotchy stain on the gauze. An empty liquor bottle on a storm drain. A paintbrush soaking in a jar of cloudy white spirit. Clothes pegs on a line, with bras and stockings and girdles lying on the ground below. Footprints in mud. Drip and smear of blood on pavement, looking like an abstract painting, black on grey._

_"Thanks. It was fun, but I've got the hang of the darkroom now. I don't need to leave more marks behind. Bin them, for all I care."_

_Albert smiles, tucks the contact sheets in a drawer, and hands me the staple gun. My fingers are battered and sore from holding a thousand tiny nails and hammering them into canvas and wood. These days I clean ochre and cadmium from under my nails, not blood._

_I think of her mouth warm against my skin, the way she she sometimes takes my lip between her teeth, bites, and lets go. But her greatest gift to me is the unimaginable luxury of the ordinary. We laugh and argue, drink and smoke, go out and stay in. There are people who like me. It's normal and agonizing and lovely. It's what I wanted._

_What if I'm only grasping at shadows? Perhaps this is phantom happiness, phantom love,  the real versions long gone, amputated and cauterized fifty years ago. I can't tell._

* * *

Why did I say I would make this call?

I gulp down half of a very stiff G & T and pick up the phone. It takes forever for the dial to spin back after each number.

I hold the glass against my forehead like a cool compress.

_Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring._

"Hello?"

Deep breath. "Lydia? Hi, you're home. It's Josie. I had a visit from Roger last night. Apparently he heard about our...discussion and was rather unhappy with me. Erm... I didn't mean those things I said."

"Had a fit of chivalry, did he? He put you up to this, then."

She's sharper than I thought.

"Yeah he did. Still, I really am sorry. But we ought to talk. In person. It's kind of important. Can you meet me somewhere?"

* * *

We're in a pub near the station, full of anonymous travelers who come in for a fortifying pint before heading off to their actual destinations. We've taken a table at the back where it's so dark I can barely make out which end of my cigarette to light.

Lydia nurses a half pint of lager. I'm having coffee. The barman had given me a dirty look as he put a battered tin kettle over the flame, reached for a dusty jar of Nescafe and dumped two heaping spoonfuls into the cup. Although I don't usually, I had to ask him for milk before I could attempt to choke the stuff down.

"Nick and his friends aren't what they seem."

"What do you mean?"

"They would kill you as soon as look at you. Believe me. I've seen... things."

"What sort of things?"

As much of the truth as I can offer. "Didn't you hear what happened awhile back? The girls who died? They had something to do with it."

"That's absurd. I don't know where you got that idea." She tilts her head like an inquisitive raven. "Because I heard your boyfriend killed them."

My hands go icy. An eternity ticks by as I try desperately to work out what to say. The foul coffee isn't sitting well.

Rather pleased with her little bombshell, Lydia sips her drink and sets it down. She rummages through her handbag to find her packet of cigarettes, and wordlessly offers me one. I shake my head no and look for another one of my own, but I'm out. The clove smoke hits the back of my throat and fills my head with its numbing perfume. Her smile glints in the dim light like the Cheshire cat's.

"One reason I so love Nicky: He doesn't believe in keeping secrets."

I can only blink like an idiot. " _Nicky_? You call him Nicky?"

"What? It's his name. You don't really know him, do you? He's clever and funny and thoughtful. We have the best time together. We're just … on the same wavelength. He's nothing like Roger." She laughs at some private joke and taps her slender brown cigarette into the foil ashtray. "Listen to me, I sound like a schoolgirl!"

I don't understand how this happened. Nick Cutler has no redeeming qualities. He's nothing but an preening overeducated thug. She'd be better off dating Idi Amin.

"And Josie, I know what he is. So no hard feelings." She reaches to take my hand. "You were trying to protect me, weren't you? You needn't worry. I haven't yet, but I'm going to join him soon. I can't wait!"

The blood drains from my face. "You want him to kill you? Are you fucking insane?"

"Our boys are alive and kicking, aren't they?"

"Kicking doesn't matter. The problem is the murdering and lying. And the hiding of corpses. I'd not wish that sort of life on anyone."

"You know what would be worse? A life where I constantly have to pretend that Nicky is human." She takes a long drag on her cigarette. "If you really cared for Mitchell, you wouldn't force him to be something he's not. Don't you want to be like him? Stop living a lie? Then you could really be together."

"Christ, no! I could never... He would never..."

She leans across the table toward me, her eyes wide and serious. "Do you love him? Does he love you?"

Could any question hurt more? Before I knew him, I was nobody. Before he knew me, he was a monster.  _Help me_ , he said. And I did. Nicky, I mean,  _Cutler_  would say:  _quid pro quo_. Can we call it love?

Lydia taps her fingers impatiently. "Well?"

"It's complicated."

"It doesn't have to be."

More and more vampires. I wish I'd ordered something stronger than coffee.

"Don't do it, Lydia. It'll be complete agony. You could die instantly, or you could spend decades wallowing in mud and entrails. You'd never get your nails clean."

For a second her gaze drifts to her manicure. Her nails are a lovely shade of the palest pink. "Hah. Not me. It's going to be fun. We've got plans. I'll help Nicky with his work. We can be patrons of the arts. Nicky's sorted it so we don't have to kill if we don't want. It'll be taken care of."

Right. Cutler's refreshments come from somewhere. How thoroughly vile.

"People will still die. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Of course it does. Everyone has to go sometime. And me, I want more. I don't want to wrinkle up. I don't want to grow feeble and ugly and clumsy and forgetful. I don't want to be someone's girl-of-the-month."

"You're sure you're not?" Her eyes flick downward again. "Did Roger call you something like that? I could slap him! Lydia, don't let that tactless git make you do something irredeemably stupid. You don't understand what you'd lose."

She covers my hand with hers and squeezes. "I understand completely, baby. I'm going into this with eyes open. Nicky and I want to be together. We won't grow old, we won't die, and I'll always be able to dance."

"But no one will see you."

She's quiet for a moment. "Nicky will see me. You will see me. Roger will see me. Unless he dies." She stubs out her cigarette and regards the crushed and lipstick-stained end. "I'll smoke as many of these as I like."

Her resolve is heartbreaking.

"I'm so sorry you got mixed up in this."

* * *

_Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring._

It's Sunday morning, half five. Who in blazes could it be?

_Ring-ring._

Too sleepy to be properly annoyed, I pry my eyes open and clamber over Mitchell to answer the phone. He barely stirs.

"Hi Josie? Lydia."

This can't be good.

"Er, morning. Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine. It's done. I wanted to tell you myself. No secrets, baby."

An ache starts beneath my ribs, acrid and burning, and expands to fill my throat.

"Oh god. That's horrible."

"Not to me. I couldn't be better."

"Listen, I know you don't care what I think, but you've made a ghastly mistake. You'll see." My eyes fill with tears. I never thought I'd cry for Lydia.

The peals of laughter emerging from the phone are so loud they wake Mitchell. He rubs one eye and grimaces in the yellowish half - light filtering from behind the curtains. "Who's that? This time of morning nothing's that funny. "

"Lydia. Apparently becoming a vampire gives her the giggles."

"That's just fucking marvelous, isn't it? I'm going back to sleep. We'll deal with this later."

Lydia has stopped chortling. "You're right. I don't care. But since we're keeping no secrets, I wanted to tell you...I'm planning to kill Roger. He's been getting on my last nerve. 'Girl-of-the-month' was only his most recent gem. I've had quite enough."

"I was afraid you might go after him. Please let him be. He may be a waste of air, but he doesn't deserve to die."

"But darling, none of us do. Deserving doesn't figure into it. If it's his time, he dies. I've done it, and it wasn't so bad. Not that part, anyway. It's natural."

"No it isn't. It's wrong. Why don't you do something useful? Go to Asia and relieve the suffering prisoners. Thin the herd in Biafra. Have mercy on the flood victims in Bangladesh. There's been enough of this...  _you_... vampires mucking things up. If you had any decency at all, you'd just go away."

"What sort of fun would that be? All the idiots here to have at, the critics and the arseholes, the lovely retribution. Killing foreigners wouldn't be nearly as satisfying. I hope you'll understand someday."

* * *

Albert and James's latest show is in a new "gallery" that's really a nightclub. The long narrow room has a stage at one end with a few tables arranged nearby, and a bar at the other. I'm alone at a table waiting for Mitchell to finish the endless rounds of chitchat with potential art buyers, admirers, and interested passers-by.

I think Nick Cutler might be following us.  I've no idea how he managed to get this gig, but here he is with his band. He's sporting the elaborately mussed ducktail quiff he wears when performing, so unlike his usual nondescript look. I'm quite unthrilled to see him. The band, which he's introduced tonight as "The Lost Men," is playing old rock'n'roll and country and western songs: "Johnny B. Goode" and "Be-bop-a-lula" and "Stand By Your Man" and "King of the Road." 

Grant raises his ginger eyebrows when he sees me and gives as non-bloodthirsty a grin as a hundred-year-old cowboy vampire can give. Robbie slouches over his bass with his eyes closed. He stands sideways to the audience as if he's a sheet of paper and leading with his narrower edge will make him disappear. And inevitably, Lydia is standing at the edge of the stage gazing at Nick as if he were Paul McCartney or something.

At the end of the set, he grins like a weasel and hops down to give Lydia an ostentatious kiss. She plops herself down at my table without asking if I mind. Nick drapes his jacket over a chair beside her and goes off to fetch us drinks. Robbie and Grant have evaporated.

Lydia beams and waves hello, like a very young girl would, raising her hand next to her face and waggling her fingers playfully.

"Josie, baby, it's so wonderful to see you!"

I have to admit, she looks good. Her cheeks are paler than I remember, accentuating her freckles, and she is calmer and more generous with her smile than before. Happier.

Cutler returns, seats himself between me and Lydia and sets down two glasses of white wine for us. He has a shorter, browner drink for himself. She puts her head on his shoulder. Their fingers interlace like they mean it. Her hand slides over his, the other tracing a path across the inside of his wrist and up his forearm to the rolled cuff of his shirt.

He looks distracted and wonderstruck. This bloodthirsty animal, this scheming creep, is exactly like a young man newly steady with a pretty girl. His eyes wander over her body and down, and he leans protectively against her chair. She glances up at him and without warning kisses his cheek. The corners of his mouth tilt up, and he doesn't seem weaselly at all, just a bit barmy and smitten. Their knees touch under the table.

A very awkward fifteen minutes later, Mitchell appears, practically glowing with happy energy. He loves going to these things. His smile fades as he recognizes my tablemates.

I can't wait to get out of here.

* * *

After two G&Ts and three cigarettes I still want to hit something. I'd smash every plate and cup in the sink, but can't afford to break any more. I chuck my shoes at the wall instead. The thump isn't loud enough. Very unsatisfying. I should be getting ready for bed but I'm not.

Mitchell picks up the shoes and sets them beside several other pairs lined up in the corner.

"Why are you so cross?"

"I don't know." Obviously, I'm lying.

"I think you do. But Jesus, you are tightly wound. Let me unwind you a little. "

Good idea. He sits on the sofa, and I sit on the floor in front of him while he runs his thumbs over the knotted muscles at the nape of my neck, my head resting back against the palms of his hands. Such a relief. I'd been scowling so hard it made my face hurt. My anger and frustration drain away, replaced by calm like diving into cool water.

"Better?"

"Oh yes." I feel like leaning against his knee and drifting off to sleep. He moves a stray lock of hair out of my eyes.

"Good. So do you want to tell me what's on your mind?"

It's a lot of work to climb onto the couch and sit beside him, but I manage it.

"It doesn't seem so important anymore, but since you asked, here's the thing: I've got used to having vampires around. I want you to be here. And I don't mind Robbie and Grant, though Grant still scares me a bit. But when vampires infiltrate my social circle, recruit my coworkers, and threaten my ex, I don't like that at all."

"That's not unreasonable. Nobody likes that." He stands and offers to help me up. "Let's call it a night."

We take turns at the bathroom sink. While he's brushing his teeth, something occurs to me.

"You know, the worst part is forever feeling like an idiot. I went on and on to Lydia about what a bad idea it was for her to let Nick...erm..."

"Recruit her?" he asks through a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Yeah. But she's doing  _great_. On cloud nine, even. And I have to warn Roger about her  _again_ , and he's not going to believe me,  _again_. I can't win. I'm just wrong all the time."

He rinses, spits, and runs the water to wash it down the drain.

"Do you really care what they think?"

"No. It's what  _I_  think. Perhaps she did the sensible thing. I mean, you saw them. True vampire love, just like that."

We're undressing in the bedroom. I have my back to him but I know he's watching while I take off my bra and put on one of the big paint-stained t-shirts he's given me. It smells like him, soap and match heads and burnt sugar.

Behind me there is the tinny clank of his belt buckle being undone, and the sound of trousers dropping on the floor. He says, "Being like them would make everything simpler wouldn't it?"

"Sometimes I think it would. Why didn't you ever find someone and just ... you know..."

"I wanted to. It didn't work out for me."

"What happened? Didn't feel right? Too evil?"

I undo my little cross pendant, take out my earrings, and put them in the jewelry box.

Mitchell, in y-fronts and socks, sits on the edge of the bed, frowning.

"That's not really the point. You and me together, we're no more  _right_ than they are."

"We are so. At least I thought we were. I mean, we're not killing people."

"Haven't we been over this? Do you think I'm helping humanity? That I'm one of the good guys?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Come on. You know perfectly well that before we met, I was anything but a good guy. And you haven't kicked me out."

Sometimes I forget just how old he is, how much he's done, the choices he's made, and why. He came to me for refuge, not redemption. I've made my own choices: when I let him in, I wasn't compelled by selflessness or moral obligation. I wanted him.

It's different now. He's not a mythical beast, not a mysterious stranger; he's a friend, a lover, a flatmate. On this bed, where so many strange things happened, he's peeling off his socks and absently scratching his ankle.

I sit down beside him. "So what  _is_  the point? Does this matter?"

"To me it does. Before we met, my life was just noise and electrical impulses and twitching muscles. Hunger and violence. If I had to leave you and everything you've given me-- home, friends, job, the world, really -- I would always know that, for a short while, I belonged here. I had this. I'll never be like I was."

I did that for him. To him. I wanted to.

* * *

Nick and Lydia are everywhere. We try to avoid them but we can't. They are relentlessly nice to us. They are in the back row at the cinema, and when the show is over they are waiting on the pavement to ask us how we liked the picture. We bump into them at the chemist, buying toothpaste and razor blades and, oddly, rubber tubing. It's become a routine: They smile and invite us for drinks, and we decline. They refuse to get the message.

Here they are at the pub, where they slide into the booth with us and order a round. You can't shut Nick up after a couple of pints. He's got his arm around Lydia and is telling, not for the first time, the story of how they met.

"When I first saw her, she was talking to you, so I reckoned killing her would send a message. You know: I got one of yours. She was close to you, but not too close. But once we'd talked, I was of two minds. One of them said I should kill her, but the other said I needn't be so predictable. If I keep her around, who'd object?"

Mitchell lights a cigarette. "Is there any point to this? Because I think you like the sound of your voice more than I do."

Cutler continues as if he hasn't heard. "Oh, on balance, she was still going to be eaten, and I told her so, because the way I see it, it's only fair for the girl to know why you're killing her.

"But she's clever. She said, Do you really want rid of me? Aren't we having a nice time together? And I said, Tell me why I shouldn't kill you. And she said, Piss off, you're the lawyer here, not me. Keep sleeping with me or kill me, but don't be a knob. And I thought, I rather like this girl. Minds weren't the only things blown that night, if you get my meaning."

Mitchell stands up to go either to the bar or the toilet, I'm not sure which.

"Nice story. Anyone need another drink?" Without waiting for an answer, he heads for the bar. He doesn't look back when Cutler calls after him.

"And Mitchell, I took your advice to heart. I stopped going to bed alone." Lydia lays her hand on his thigh. His eyes close halfway. I might as well be invisible.

Mitchell takes two trips to carry the four glasses to the table. He's in no hurry to sit down.

Nick sips his drink, gently removes Lydia's hand from his leg, and continues as if he'd never stopped talking.

"My friend, you're missing the bigger picture. Your girl is a liability. So fragile. So impractical. My colleagues and I have a system. It's tried and true, tidy and efficient. Civilized. None of this rending of flesh and carrying on like wild animals. I can't stand that sort of mess and disorder. And I don't have to. We harvest our supplies off premise, decant, dispose, and enjoy, trouble-free. Everyone plays a part. Grant does the dispatching, Robbie does the cleanup, and I do the distribution.

"Now what are we missing in this little supply chain? Why, procurement, of course. That's where my girl will come in. They'll be on her like moths to a flame. She gets them so far, we take them the rest of the way, and hey presto, we're set! Here's to you, my sweet young thing!"

He raises his glass, drains it, and picks up the full one beside it.

"And with that, it's time for a little announcement. Now that I've completed my team, I plan to build on our success. Middle management is not my style at all. I prefer to run my own show. Recently, I've had word that I'm needed to whip a flagging organization back into shape. I'd say we're off to greener pastures, but we're headed for the seaside. More sand than grass."

They're leaving! I suppose I should be happy for them.

But the vampires have taken Lydia and it's my fault. Seth and his friends came here and killed people and it's my fault. Roger is in danger and it's my fault. I opened this door. I let in the monsters.


	14. Stakes, raised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia wants to be more than friends. Mitchell has a run-in. Things begin to come apart.

I've become a caretaker of lost souls. I'm surely unqualified for this job: I've barely shaken myself free from Roger, and I'm still learning to negotiate things for myself.

There is a physical sensation, like driving over gravel, of the supernatural dissolving into the ordinary, the secrets just out of reach, leaking drops of meaning I can't quite grasp. I notice things that aren't there. Or shouldn't be. My pulse increases slightly when I walk past television sets, afraid they'll spontaneously come to life and speak. Mitchell says one of the cashiers at the grocery, the sullen one with the scarred arm and the odd musky smell, is a werewolf, and he knows that Mitchell knows. Every month at full moon he changes into a wild animal who could tear any of us to pieces, and doesn't remember a thing the next day. We avoid his queue at the checkout.

They've opened me in a way that humans can't. We enter a communal space apart from hard surfaces and sharp edges, where mind and body are permeable, feelings have colors and tastes, everyone's thoughts are audible. We're no good at concealing ourselves.

I sink into Stephanie's awareness without meaning to, hearing the vicious whispers: Mitchell is unattainable, he'd kill her rather than be with her. I'm a fool or a martyr.

She has it wrong. Mitchell thinks they are too alike, that she would pull him back into the depths of addiction. She's also got this in common with him: she wants people to love her. I find I love them both. I do my best to see them clearly, the shapes they take when free of names and containers.

Mitchell is all seething red and black, bound in wires, tendrils of rage and hunger working themselves free and then dropping off, bleeding, only to grow back and start the process again.

Stephanie drifts in an acrid cloud, its colors beautiful, but if you touch her it burns. It clings to her, dissolving anything nearby, making surfaces spongy and unstable.

These two, just a woman and a man, friends of mine, reaching through unbelievable circumstances to find me. Is this a dream or an hallucination? Am I awake? Or is there some other way of thinking about this, unbound by normal explanation but just as real as this ashtray, this teacup, these fingers interlacing with mine?

In the middle of the night he holds my wrist, feeling the blood flowing beneath the skin, taunting himself, testing. I see his eyes half close in the dim light, and he bites the inside of his lip. This game should frighten me but it doesn't. He seems more like a child when he does it, the exaggerated concentration, the touching need for approval.

I still don't know if he sees me as an idea or as a person, his fragile temptation, his taskmistress, tour guide to the humans, teacher, gatekeeper. This love is complicated with fear and doubt, unreasonable need, irrational trust. He's just a bloke. He's not.

When something good happens, a productive day at the studio, learning a new chord on the guitar, waking up with sun filtering through the curtains, going for a walk someplace green and leafy, sitting under a tree eating chocolate and baguette, weekend trips for no reason at all, sleeping in, drives in the countryside, anything, there's always, at some point, the quiet blissful smile of someone who thought he'd never do any of these things ever again, astonishment and wonder written on his face, a condemned man set free. I love him so much then.

Sometimes he still brings me flowers, never those blood-red roses, but daffodils and tulips, carnations and lilies. Some days I want to give him armful after armful of poppies, my poor brave wounded boy, my haunted bitter old man who shares his ghosts with me. I know that if I did, he'd only smile and ask me what he's supposed to do with them all. Give them to Stephanie, he'd say, she'll appreciate the gesture.

* * *

The downpour begins while I am walking home. I duck into a cheap cafe. I've never been here before, though I pass by every day. It's larger than I expected, with hard fluorescent light washing over at least ten greyish tables with mustard-yellow plastic chairs, their metal-rod legs bent double like giant hairpins.

I take a table facing the door and watch people dash in, folding their umbrellas and breathing into their hands to thaw them. My wet coat squeaks against my chair when I sit down. Rain splatters from the awning, a sound like a television tuned between stations. My tea is still too hot to drink but the cup warms my hands.

A young man stands outside holding the door while a girl steps out from under his umbrella into the cafe, pushing back the hood of her raincoat to reveal a cloud of dark ringlets. He shakes off the umbrella and follows, slipping his arm around her waist and grinning like a rodent.

How did Nick and Lydia find me here? They express their amazement (feigned, I'm sure) at such a lucky coincidence, and claim the table beside mine. Lydia drapes her raincoat over a chair. I greet her with an awkward A-shaped hug. Nick leaves his overcoat on top of hers and joins the queue of soggy people waiting for service.

Lydia lights a sweet-smelling brown cigarette. "How have you been, baby?"

"Oh, same as ever. You?"

Lydia moves in her chair, a slow undulation that reminds me of a cat rubbing against someone's leg. She closes her eyes and her smile grows wider and wider. "So fantastic. Could not possibly be better. I can't understand why you don't want what we've got."

With her transparent pale skin, elegant arched eyebrows and great masses of unfashionably curly dark hair cascading down her back and framing her face in a dark halo, Lydia seems more like a watercolor princess than a real person. She shatters this illusion by belching like a drunk, then giggling snortily when I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

After recovering her composure, she continues as if nothing happened. "See, I keep wondering: if you love your boy, why don't you want the real him? He needs his family. And you know, _you_ could be part of the family too. Easy-peasy. We'd be friends again."

A short laugh catches at the back of my throat. Vampires have a million ways to avoid mentioning what they really do and how they do it. Also, I ought to tell her about the smudge of lipstick on her front teeth.

"I don't want to be a killer. And I wouldn't stay with someone who was. And Lydia, we were never friends."

She takes a long thoughtful drag from her cigarette.

"I always wanted us to be. I looked up to you. When I first saw you with Roger, I thought you the most glamorous couple I'd ever seen, so fearless and talented and intriguing. I never dreamed Roger would be interested in me. I learned a lot from him. Real things. True things. "

"Like how to get his trousers unzipped? How to kick people when they're down?"

"No, I learned that love has no boundaries. He never belonged to you. I never belonged to him. I thought you finally understood."

"Lydia, free love is a lie. People don't work like that. Musical beds and random shags are too much trouble. People want someone to curl up beside and ask how their day was, someone safe. Someone who feels like home. The rest of it is all nerves and meat. "

"You're wrong. What a tiny world you live in. Such a waste. We are capable of so much more. You're afraid there's not enough love to go round."

"That's exactly something Roger would say."

Lydia runs her tongue over her front teeth, then she rubs them with a finger until the lipstick smudge is gone.

"Forget Roger. Let's talk about _us_ now. You and me. We can have anything we want, _anyone_ we want. "

I glance over my shoulder. Nick is in the middle of the queue now, with six or seven people still ahead of him. He's going to be there awhile.

"Lydia, what I really want to know is: did it hurt?"

"What?" The change of subject throws her off for a second. "Oh." Her eyes squeeze shut, and her fingers touch the place where her neck meets her shoulder, the palm of her hand resting in the hollow above her collarbone. She squints under the fluorescent light.

"Yes. It hurt. But not as much as you might think. Dying wasn't so bad. Coming back was."

"That part is worse? I had no idea," I lie. "How so?"

"I can't... I mean... " She blinks hard, inhaling sharply through her teeth. She's watching Nick. "Nicky says you don't get to be immortal for free. But it's worth it. It's all worth it. Everything's marvelous."

The cafe is crowded with customers escaping the rain, and their echoing chatter seems to fill all the space in the room. Lydia lights another cigarette and leans toward me. I taste clove.

"It's fizzy, you know." I can barely hear her over the din.

"What is?"

"Vampire blood. That was my last thought as a human. _Fizzy_. "

Nick is nearly at the front of the queue.

* * *

Mitchell said I needn't stay up waiting for him, so I go to bed early.

I dream that Lydia has huge black eyes and great fairy wings. She flies up to my window, breaks the glass, climbs inside, stands over my bed and taps me with a magic wand while whispering in my ear. "It's for your own good, baby."

And then I'm hanging upside down from the ceiling by a rope around my feet. Except I don't have feet. Or hands. In the mirror, I've become a wrinkled white larva, dangling by a silken thread, rotating slowly in the draft from the broken window.

When the telephone wakes me at 2 AM, I need to extricate myself from tangled sheets before I can answer.

"It's me. I'm at A & E."

"Christ. What's happened?"

"Albert. But don't worry. He's okay, he's okay. He's lost a bit of blood but he'll recover. He was attacked but I got there in time."

"Right. An attacker. Anyone you know?"

The pause is long enough for me to breathe in and out three or four times. A vampire then.

"Josie, it was Robbie."

_Robbie!_ Mitchell is fond of saying that all vampires are arseholes, but I still can't picture shy, stammering Robbie, provider of carefully sliced limes and patient guitar instruction, ambushing anyone. It's been weeks since we've seen him, but I thought he'd been hiding because of his falling out with Stephanie.

"Didn't he know who Albert was?"

"He knew."

"And what did he think, that no one would mind? Fucking idiot!"

"Not really." He sounds very tired. "Doesn't matter. Listen, we'll talk about it when I get home, okay? James is here now. Albert will be fine."

* * *

Mitchell trudges in three quarters of an hour later, peels off a bloodstained shirt, dumps it in the bathroom sink and leaves the water running.

I pour him a drink while he sits at the kitchen table. His white undershirt is dusted with specks of dried blood. I rub his shoulders anyway. It's like touching a marble statue. He reaches back to put his hand over mine.

"You don't have to do that. Just be still a minute, please. Sit down or something."

I sit at the table opposite him, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. "Tell me what happened."

"We were at the gallery taking down some paintings. Robbie was hiding. He pushed Albert up against the side of the van, looked me straight in the eye and said, _Hullo, Mitchell_. Then he went after Albert."

"You mean he bit him?"

A nod. "I pulled Robbie off him. Robbie fought me, can you believe it? I told him to walk away, but he said no, and what I was going to do about it."

"What did you do? "

"What I had to." He exhales loudly, and looks away, tight-lipped. The muscle in his temple is twitching the way it does when he's upset.

_Robbie's dead._

It's suddenly very cold in here. The lights go out. A mug flies off the kitchen counter and smashes at his feet. Stephanie's footsteps crunch and drag the shards across the floor.

"Stephanie. There was nothing else I could do."

She stands in the pile of broken china, her mouth a grim line.

"Why is he gone while you're still here? It isn't fair."

"No. It isn't."

I'm not so grief-stricken. Mostly, I'm angry. "He was a stupid bastard. Why did he drag us into it?"

"His other mates wouldn't help him. What he did was an arsehole move, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone else's idea."

I've some idea who he means.

Mitchell throws back the rest of his whiskey. "And on top of all that, I've been sacked."

"But you didn't do anything wrong! You saved Albert's life! I'll speak to James."

"Don't bother. I would have quit anyway."

I'm so frustrated I could scream. I want to tear flesh, spill blood, destroy buildings, claw out my own eyes. I can't fix anything. We're falling apart.

* * *

Mitchell has been resolutely searching for work. He's picked up a few overnight hours loading refrigerated cargo at a warehouse. It's not much but it gets him out of the house.

He's working tonight, and I've just had drinks with James and Albert, who's healing up fine. He brushed off my apologies for the incident, joking that scars add mystery, which is good for his career. They're still looking for a new assistant and lamenting the loss of, as James called him, "their irreplaceable invisible muse". But they wouldn't have him back.

I'm tipsily fumbling with my keys in front of the door to my flat when it swings open on its own. I expect Stephanie to be there, tutting at me for keeping too many keys on my ring.

It isn't Stephanie, it's Lydia.

"Hello, baby. Let's have a chat."

"Why do you keep following me? Leave me alone."

There's no subtle way to fish a stake out of a ladies' handbag. I really should've kept it in my pocket. She slips an arm around my shoulder.

"We're down a team member, you know. Nicky's promised not to touch you, but I haven't. And nothing would make Nicky happier than to rescue Mitchell from this... madness. "

"Listen. We don't want what you're selling. I'd like you to go now."

"But how can you bear it? Him moping about, you off at work every day... it's all backward and upside down, isn't it? "

Tears are prickling at my eyelashes and blurring my vision but I'm not going to let her know it.

"Poor baby. Let me help you. We can give you a sense of purpose. We'll be a family."

"Stop that. Vampires are no kind of family."

"So judgmental. That's what's hurting you: monogamy and humanity. Look at you. You're miserable. You don't need to be. We've got love that goes on forever. There's enough for me, Nicky, both of you, and more besides."

Enough love to go round. Right. I'm trying to remember what it felt like - urgency and wonder, sweet electricity - but I'm only tired and sore, drained dry, with grit behind my eyelids and a hollow ache in my chest. What have I got left?

The grief erupts from nowhere. It practically knocks me over. I sink to the floor, resting my face on my arms, sobbing, shuddering. The room pitches and rolls.

What if I were to let Mitchell finish me? Would my ghost stay with him? Would I sit on the sofa beside Stephanie as he avoids our eyes and brings us cup after cup of tea we can't drink? Or would there be a sudden pain, that familiar crushing black empty cold, and then nothing?

Someone is on the floor with me. Fine dark ringlets brush against my cheek. A soft hand smooths my hair out of my eyes. Smell of sandalwood and clove. She eases me backward and cradles my head in her lap. Cold fingers stroke my temples.

"Come here baby. Let me fix it."

Her breathing goes strange. She nuzzles my face and gently bites my earlobe. It makes me shiver, but I'm not afraid. Her mouth, soft and jagged at the same time, slides from my ear to just below my chin. The fangs scrape lightly over my skin without drawing blood. She stops but the sensation lingers.

Her fingers wrap around my wrist. The pulse throbs obligingly against her hand. She draws breath and draws breath but never exhales, a steady unnatural hiss. Her skin becomes even colder.

There's nothing worth saving.

"Go ahead," I tell her. "Just kill me. Don't make me come back."

I'm vaguely aware of something yellow and pink standing over us.

"Talk about pathetic. I can't believe you're going to sit there and let her kill you. I don't recommend it."

Stephanie pulls ineffectively at Lydia's shoulder. "Get away from her! And Josie, you don't want to die, you're just really pissed. Get up."

Stephanie just called me pathetic.

Lydia's grip loosens. What am I doing? Mitchell has told me people would give themselves up to him without a word of protest, and he hated it. This is what he meant. My face grows hot. I shake myself out of the stupor.

"She's right, Lydia. I can't go through with it."

"Can't go through with it? Did you think this was a game? That you can call time out and we'll go back to our playhouses? Sorry. Perhaps you'll thank me later."

"I'm not interested. If you don't go, I will."

"Why haven't you gone, then? This is no place for you. I ought to kill you anyway. Put you out of your misery. I might enjoy that a great deal, now that I think of it. " She crosses between me and the door.

"Get out. Or at least get out of my way."

"Why should I?"

Why should she? I'm not going to plead for my life. I won't give her the satisfaction.

"Because this is my home and I've asked you to. "

Stephanie watches from the corner. "Leave her alone."

Lydia giggles like a schoolgirl. "Oh you're one to talk. Both of you mooning after vampires. You can't resist us, can you? You even came back from beyond for one."

Stephanie snorts in disgust. "It wasn't up to me."

"Nonsense. You're like moths to a candle. If you were ready to go then you wouldn't be here. " She reaches for Stephanie's arm, but misses it by an inch or so. Her fingers pass through the translucent skin, grasping a handful of nothing.

My upper arm is quite solid, and Lydia successfully grabs it.

"And you, Josie, you're at the edge, dangling by your fingertips. You think you might let go. I understand. I felt it too. You want to touch the dark, to taste it. I can tell you: It's delicious. Immortality. Strength. Power. And yes, beauty. My Nicky appreciates it all."

"Nothing I've seen of this is beautiful. It's repellent."

"Then why are you here?"

"Love."

She bursts out laughing, not a giggle but a full blown guffaw.

"Oh, you are hilarious! You don't love him, sweetheart. You're just twisted. Nicky told me when he first saw the two of you, you had Mitchell trussed up and starving! That made you feel powerful, didn't it? I bet you liked that."

She spins me by the arm so that I'm forced to look her in the face. Her dark brown eyes sparkle with amusement. "You've no idea what you're doing. He'll stay on your lead as long as it suits him, then he'll suck you dry."

"You don't know him at all."

"Hah. Him? He's a fucking exhibitionist. He was a showy killer. Now he's a showy martyr. And you get off on it, don't you? What a couple of perverts."

"You have a problem with perversion? That's new."

"Some things are just plain unnatural. Let me set them right. If he won't help you, I will."

Her voice is dangerous. She pushes dark hair away to reveal a pale freckled face gone alien and feral, a demonic china doll.

"No. Thanks. We'll manage." I'm trying to sound calm but I can barely breathe.

In the corner, Stephanie digs through my handbag, tossing out compacts, lipsticks, tissues, a hairbrush, old playbills, grocery receipts, and finally, the stake. With a great lunge, she tries to shove the stake into Lydia's back, but she's not strong enough. It slides from her grip and lands with a clatter. Lydia bends to grab it, but Stephanie kicks it under the sofa out of reach.

The ghost blinks out of sight and reappears beside me. She hands me the stake. "Here, you do it." She's gone again.

Without thinking I thrust the pointy end of the stake at Lydia. I didn't know it would be so easy to put it clean through her.

Her wide-eyed stricken expression reminds me of the naive seventeen-year-old Lydia, when I told her my name was Vera and she hung back and wouldn't smoke Roger's grass. But she stuck around.

"You seemed so sad. I was seriously trying to help."

I think she might cry.

"Oh God. Sorry." I stand up and back away.

"Fuck off." Her face contorts in something like pain or sorrow. "Damn..."

Fissures run down her lovely cheeks. The skin blackens like burnt leaves. A brief flash of light, a gasp of cold air, a nauseating liquid gurgle. Sizzle of falling powder. Her dress collapses, empty.

The stake clunks to the floor.


	15. All apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so our girl and boy collide, then careen in opposite directions, each having left a permanent mark on the other. We'll be seeing them one last time before saying our final farewells.

The stake went through her easily, with an oddly satisfying crunch, like ice breaking on a half-frozen puddle, or dry fallen leaves in autumn.

Dust drifts and settles across the floor, carrying the stink of sulfur, burning hair, melted plastic and clove. A rumpled heap of clothing lies steaming and empty. A faint glint of silver catches my eye, peeking from under a soiled dress hem, and some impulse moves me to fish it out, sending a cloud of acrid dust into the air and setting me coughing.

The pretty filigree silver bangle is set with turquoise stones, its tiny gaps and crevices clogged with powder. It's warmer than my fingers. Pointlessly, I wipe at it with my sleeve and drop the thing in the ashtray. My stomach clenches. I've just stuck my hands into the desiccated remains of someone I've killed.

_I had to do it._

I don't know how long I've been sitting on the floor, curled into myself, nauseating waves of chill and heat washing over me. My ears are full of blaring din like a thousand car horns sounding at once - it's too loud to think. My eyes sting and itch from the drifting ash. The only light in the room is from the street lamps outside.

I need a drink.

Something like an icy feather grazes my arm. Green frosted eyelids and platinum hair shimmer in the lamplight. The rest of her is either opaque or invisible, a dark shape with a faintly glowing outline. Stephanie kneels beside me and pushes my hair out of my eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"I don't know. I can't tell. "

"Well, I'm glad you did it. I'm so tired of vampires. Score one for the humans." Her smile is grim but triumphant.

"I'm running out of humans. I seem to have more dead friends than live ones."

"And now you have dead enemies too."

I never thought of Lydia that way. She was annoying and a bit pretentious. Condescending. Irrational. Maybe even stupid. But that doesn't merit a fight to the death, does it?

"Is that what she was? My enemy?"

"No, I suppose not. She wanted to be like you, but got it all wrong."

"She tried to steal my life out from under me...I guess..." That makes her sound awfully villainous, but she wasn't really. More like pathetic. My outrage is faltering.

"What, Roger? You really aren't thinking clearly, are you?" Stephanie makes that little disgusted snort of hers, and shakes her head. "You each liked  _vampires_  more than you liked him. Be angry at her for trying to kill you, not for ridding you of that idiot."

She brings me tea and then brandy, wraps me in warm blankets, and makes empty and soothing chatter: the weather, pop music, fashion. I'm glad she's here. We sit in front of the television together, ignoring the drone of newscasters and weathermen, talking about nothing.

Although I'm exhausted and well-dosed with liquor, I can't sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, the scene replays itself: Lydia's face frozen in horror as her pale freckled skin purples across cheeks and eyelids, the lips turn brown, then black, then shred into tatters to reveal darkening teeth that crumble and fall in streams of grit. Her eyes boil away like ice thrown on hot coals, white fumes curling out of the sockets.

I've opened all the windows to get rid of the smell. Cold, damp night air blows through the flat.

A few hours later. I don't think I was asleep. Footsteps thump up the stairs and keys rattle at the door. Mitchell is home from his night shift.

He flips on the light and his eyes widen. "Jesus. What happened?"

I haven't moved from my nest of blankets on the sofa. Lydia's short geometric print dress lies in a crumpled heap on the floor, its cheerful triangles of bright red and magenta and white and black all soiled with pale grey-brown dust.

I gesture vaguely in the direction of the dust heap. "Lydia. I had to do it. She tried to recruit me."

"Wow." He shakes his head, annoyed. "That was mental. And idiotic. They knew they weren't allowed to touch you. "

"She knew, she just didn't care. She didn't even tell Nick. Some of the things she said..."  _Exhibitionist. Martyr. Pervert._  "And... and... now the flat reeks."

He gives a brief, businesslike sigh. Leaving dark bootprints in the dust settled around the armchair and tracking still more dust into the kitchen, he emerges shaking the folds out of a big black bin liner.

With a practiced, almost elegant circular swipe, he gathers the pile of clothing along with as much dust as he can, stuffs it all into the bag, throws her shoes on top, ties the thing shut, corner to corner, and sets it tidily against the wall. Only a broad round smudge is left on the floor, and a whitish trail of prints leading to the kitchen with a fainter trail back. Finally, he hoovers up all the dust. A well-worn routine.

I watch numbly, huddling under covers with my arms wrapped around my knees. When he's finished, he comes to sit beside me. My lips and fingertips are cold. An ashy haze hangs in the air.

"It went right through her like nothing," I tell him. "Like popping a soap bubble."

* * *

I don't get out of bed until close to noon, when I'm woken by a heavy knock on the door. I watch bleary-eyed from the bedroom as Mitchell opens it. Grant slouches there, looking bored, scraping dark grime from under his fingernails with a pocket knife. Engrossed in the task, he doesn't look up, though I think he might be half-grinning behind his whiskers.

"I ain't a little pitcher but I do have me some big ears. And the walls here are real thin . Y'all oughta know that Nick was mighty fond of that girl. It's a darn shame."

He looms in the doorway and the hall light behind him throws his even bigger shadow into the flat, dwarfing Mitchell in every dimension.

I put on my dressing gown, shrink into the furthest corner of the sofa, light a cigarette and try to look nonchalant. If anyone were paying attention, the tremor in my hand would give me away immediately. Nobody's looking at me though; this is vampire business.

Mitchell is all adrenaline and eyebrows. He crosses his arms and stares daggers at Grant. "You think standing there taking up space will scare us?" He feints toward Grant like a boxer ready to enter the ring. To my surprise, Grant flinches.

"Nick knew the deal." Mitchell continues. His voice is laced with poison. "As long as we didn't make trouble we were to be left alone. Lydia knew it too. Tell Nick whatever you like. Try using words he understands. Like ' _breach of contract_.' "

Grant folds up the knife and puts it in his back pocket. "Didn't know y'all had a contract, per se. Thought it was more of a, um, gentlemen's agreement."

"We're  _not_  gentlemen," says Mitchell through clenched teeth. "But let's not quibble: it  _was_  an agreement. We're obliged to keep them, and we should be teaching our recruits to do the same. Tell Nick that, too."

Grant wrinkles his thick coppery eyebrows as he considers this. He extracts a fat silver lighter from his front pocket and a cigarette from behind his ear. It looks like a toothpick in his enormous hand. He finishes half the cigarette before he speaks again.

"Fair enough. I'll tell him, all right. I won't make nothin' up, but I won't leave nothin' out neither." He smirks. "She got a few good licks in before she went. A damn waste, losin' a bright girl like that."

He drops the end of his cigarette on the floor, jams his hands into the pockets of his fringed suede jacket, and turns to go.

"Welp, I'll be seein' ya."

* * *

This book always helped. It's been read so many times that its cover is in pieces. Most of the last chapter has fallen out of the binding, and its loose pages must be tucked carefully back inside when I'm finished reading them. My eyes slide over the dear familiar words and pictures without taking anything in. I find myself gazing vacantly into the empty space past the book. Even Pooh and Piglet can't distract me today.

"I don't think you can actually read a book without looking at it." Mitchell takes it from my hands, being sure to stuff the last chapter back inside, and marks my spot with a playing card, and sets it on the coffee table. He's just finished the washing up after supper and leaves wet fingerprints soaking into on the dark red leather cover. It'll dry.

I catch his wrist as he turns to go back to the kitchen. "I feel like a murderer. Am I a murderer?"

"Of course not. She tried to hurt you. Anyway, she was already dead."

Such a thoughtless answer. It's wrong. It's the depth of the chasm between us - bottomless, opaque, uncrossable.

"No she wasn't. That's a stupid vampire figure of speech. What happened was,  _I killed her._  You can't kill a dead person. She was like you.  _And you aren't dead._ "

He shrugs. "It's not that simple. The people we once were? Dead. Gone from the world. I'm only what's left."

_Stop hiding behind the vampire. Let's not be monsters. Please._

I plunge onward, trying to explain myself. "Fine. You're not that other bloke anymore. But I never knew him.  _I know you._  I'm not the same as before I met you either. The girl I was: did she die?"

He inclines his head away from me, and closes his eyes with a pained expression. He's not ready to concede this, and I hear the note of frustration and annoyance creep into his voice.

"No, no, it's  _physical_. When you become a vampire you actually die. Things are taken from you- "

_Stop it. Stop it._

"-Yeah, okay. I think I'm past the beginners' lessons by now. But hey, don't you still feel this?" I lace my fingers through his and bring his hand to my lips as if to kiss it. I bite him instead, hard.

"Ow."

"See? You felt that. Because you're not dead." He's not arguing. I want him to. "How about this? Bet you feel this too." I elbow him in the ribs.

"Ouch. Okay. You win. You've made your point. "

"Have I? What is my point?" I want him to shove me to the floor and pin me there. I want the floor to be hard and awkward against my spine. I want it to hurt.  _Tie my hands. Gag me. Make it not my fault._

He doesn't do those things.

He grabs my wrists. "That's enough." As if he's scolding a misbehaving child. I wonder what he'd do if I kicked and screamed and thrashed. A dull roaring fills my ears. The air is too thick to breathe.

" _Stop saying you're dead!_  Stop! It's not true. You wouldn't be talking to me then, would you?" Since he's holding my wrists, I kick him in the leg. "Did that hurt? Am I annoying you? Because dead people don't get annoyed."

"Are you finished?"

I need to calm down. I do my best to keep my voice level, though I'm nearly hyperventilating. "Don't fucking ask me that. You want some blindingly obvious human wisdom? Vampires are liars. That pile of dirt you swept up? That's dead.  _She's dead. Not you._ "

The itching in my throat expands into a cough, and another, and another. I cough until my sides hurt.

After the fit subsides, he dabs at face with a handkerchief. He must think I've gone mad.

"And she was so easy to kill. I don't understand it."

"Killing is easy. It's boring. Death is everywhere - on the street, in your bed, under your feet. It's what we all have in common: either we have died, or we will die. Sometimes more than once. But okay, we'll call it... what I am... something else. Does that help?"

"I don't know." My throat is raw. Talking hurts.

"What would help?  _What do you want from me?_ "

"I want you to remember what it's like. Maybe you really can't understand it anymore. _It costs_. I'm less than I was before. But listen:  _You are alive._  I believe that.  _I know it_. And I can't bear to think of you dissolving into nothing."

It's not until he disengages my hand that I find I've been gripping his forearm so hard my fingers ache. He looks down at the little crescent-shaped marks I've left on him, and then back at me.

"I'm not afraid of being nothing. Being alive frightens me more."

"It  _should_. It's terrifying to have something to lose. No matter how much you sacrifice, how hard you try to hold on, you'll lose it anyway. I love that you're afraid. We have that in common."

* * *

The next night. We drink the rest of a bottle of whiskey and stare at the evening news without following any of it. Very loud footsteps thump up the stairs. Someone pounds on the door.

"Mitchell! Open up! I need to speak with you!"

Nick's here. I'm too frightened to panic. The last of the liquor burns its way down my throat. My dark skirt is sprinkled with fallen cigarette ash. I left the good ashtray on the kitchen counter beside the sink. The stupid heavy glass one, already filled to overflowing, squats on the other end of the coffee table near the armchair, out of reach.

Mitchell takes his time answering the door. On the way, he retrieves the stake from his coat pocket and carries it casually at his side, like a newspaper or a hairbrush. Looking through the peephole, he relaxes, and turns to me to silently whisper, "Alone."

"I'm letting you in, okay?" he calls through the door. "You can stop knocking." The door opens and I smell earth and alcohol, piss and sweat.

Cutler staggers in, disheveled and hollow-eyed. His collar is undone, overcoat hanging open. A single vertical drip of blood on his white shirt has turned brown at the edges. Drying mud is caked on his shoes and smeared on his trouser cuffs. His watery blue eyes are shot with red. The voice is no different, though. He may as well be discussing rental contracts.

"Ah, you haven't run off. Good. I wanted to share something with the two of you." He pauses to mop his brow with a filthy handkerchief.

"I almost believed you had the right idea: don't go it alone. Find a special person. Someone you can trust, who's on your side. Now, someone like that, especially suited for you, the right combination of attraction and cleverness and ..." He bites his lower lip and sucks air through his teeth, "...a hand in a glove, a key to a lock, a flame to a fuse... doesn't come round very often. Perhaps once. If you're lucky. Twice would be statistically unlikely, wouldn't it?"

His grimy hand rakes through his hair, pasting it roughly back from his forehead. "Here's what I learned, or had to be reminded: one oughtn't be too attached. It's weakness. Whether you kill a girl or sleep with her, accept the deal you're offered, or not - you give something up either way." He takes a swig from a flask and with some difficulty wrestles it back into his coat pocket. " _Isn't that right, Mitchell_?

"But you must never invest too much. Because... Where's the advantage? Once she's gone, what about your investment? Doesn't matter! The door's shut. Only you knew what was once behind it. All the evidence: dust. No one saw or felt a thing. It never. Fucking. Happened."

"That's hilarious." Mitchell isn't even smiling. "Nick. It wasn't some sort of random accident. Lydia didn't fall down a well. She wasn't eaten by bears. And Josie didn't kill her. _You did._ " He gives a brief meaningful glance in my direction. Nice try.

Cutler takes a step toward Mitchell but stumbles on the edge of the rug. He has to lean heavily on the back of the armchair to keep his balance. Little clods of dirt crumble from the edges of his shoes. We'll need to clean the floor again.

"That's an arguable point but I'm going to let it pass." Nick gestures toward each of us with the hand that isn't gripping the armchair. "The trouble you and your mates gave us when you first got here... Lack of discretion, trails of evidence, chaos to reorder... None of that's happened again, has it? There's no muss no fuss." He wipes his hands together as if cleaning them off, and almost falls over. "Nothing out of order. Nothing at all." His voice trails off into a nearly inaudible mumble.

"I ought to let you know: My plans haven't changed. I'll be leaving for Wales next week. Grant will be in charge. There's a big job ahead of me and I expect I shall be too busy to trouble myself with the goings-on here."

It takes one of us at each of his elbows to get him out the door.

Before he leaves for good, Nick's dull eyes fill with something like clarity for a moment, and he grabs me by the shoulder. "She thought the world of you, you know."

* * *

While I brush my teeth, Mitchell leans round the bathroom doorway. "We're finally rid of him. Nice going."

"Don't. It's not something I'm proud of." I take out my earrings and start toward the bedroom to get undressed.

"But you should be. You were too clever for her."

"I wasn't. I nearly let her kill me. Stephanie talked me out of it at the last minute."

He follows me into the bedroom, frowning. "You're not joking, are you?"

"No. I was just so tired."

"Tired." It's not a question.

"More than tired. I've run out of water in the desert at the edge of a hole a thousand feet deep and animals are chasing me and there's nowhere to go but in. And it looks sort of cool and peaceful down there. Remember when you almost let Albert stake you? I get it now."

His face darkens. "No, no! You've got it all wrong. That was completely different."

"I don't think it was. You were cornered. You felt hopeless. You gave up. So did I."

He sits on the edge of the bed, taking off his boots. One of his white socks has a hole in the toe. "Here's the difference:  _Your life belongs to you._  You know where I got mine. It's stolen." He chucks his socks on the pile of laundry in the corner. The muscle in his temple twitches.

Abruptly, he wheels toward me. "I've killed hundreds of people. Why would Albert ever let me go?  _Tell me why._ "

I chew my lip. My face turns red. He waits an uncomfortably long time before answering his own question.

"Why? Because  _you_  asked him to."

I can't argue with that. I slip out of my blouse and bra and into the oversized paint-stained t-shirt that smells like his aftershave.

"So what's happened is we've spared each other. Are we even, then? In that case, I'm right back where I started: lonely, miserable, and ready to die."

"Jesus Christ, Josie. Is that what you want?" His face contorts in rage, or is it grief? He presses his fist against his mouth and takes it away, like a slow-motion punch, only his hand is shaking. "Fine. I didn't kill you because _I wasn't hungry_. Now's your chance." His eyes blacken, his face feral and alien.

"Why not? You can't frighten me." I push my hair back, tilt my head, and and bare my throat to him. "Go ahead. Do it." My eyes fix on the overhead light burning its shape into my retinas. All I can see is white.

 _"Aw fuck!"_  He shoves me across the room. " _Get away from me!_ "

I land beside the armchair, my clothes speckled with crumbs of dirt from Cutler's shoes. The whiskey bottle has spun off of the coffee table and landed beside him, unbroken. He kicks it against the wall hard enough to break it. Only a black and white label holds together the fragments of shattered glass.

"Stupid girl. Why did I think you were any different? Just like all of them, weak and useless, giving up without even a twitch. A sorry little death wish."

A pale streak appears in the air beside him and swipes him across the face with an audible crack. Stephanie can't do him much damage but she's got his attention.

"Shut your mouth! You're all soppy apology when you meet someone with backbone, but show a little vulnerability and you just go in for the kill, don't you? You're disgusting. Have some fucking respect. Nobody's done more for you than she has, you ungrateful bastard. The very least you could do is have the tiniest bit of compassion for someone other than yourself."

"Is that all?" With his his head lowered in shame, his hair hangs shaggily over his face. I want to push it out of his eyes, but I don't dare move.

"No, as a matter of fact, it isn't. I know you don't want to hear it, but let me remind you: I'm dead.  _I'm dead!_  I'll never have anything like a life, thanks to you and your incredible lack of self control. Don't piss hers away too, you selfish piece of shit."

Stung, he sits beside me but drawn away, an invisible barrier preventing us from touching. He covers his face with his hands, and shudders without making a sound.

"Oh God. I'm sorry."

She tuts impatiently. "Quit saying you're sorry and get your head out of your arse. Be a decent human being for once."

None of this is fair. Nobody wins this. But I know hard he's tried, again and again, day by day, minute by minute.

"Give him a little credit," I tell her. "Right now he's showing quite a lot of self control."

He's sitting on the bed, looking down, nervously drumming his fingers on his knees. "You've got ... Do you know what I'd give to be human again? Do you have any idea? You have friends and a future and a place in the world. Why on earth would you want to throw that away? For Christ's sake, how can you think that's not worth anything?"

"What future? I'll get old, you won't. I'll die alone, weak, helpless, confused, in pain. Perhaps it's better to be like you. "

"Don't be stupid. Stephanie's right. I don't know how to be decent. Look what almost happened. I need you. If I lost you, what would I do? Where could I go?"

"You don't need me. You know right from wrong."

"Do I? Do you really think so? This: working, having a home, a routine, acting human - none of it is me! It's all you."

"No.  _You chose this,_  remember? We both did."

"I can't do this alone. The very idea of it terrifies me. Do you love that? Are you satisfied?"

* * *

Every door is bolted shut. There's nowhere left to go.

The wounds, though invisible, are horrific, and they don't heal. I can barely comprehend what happened to him, but it was something like this: he was fully conscious while his humanity was torn from his body and eaten. What's lost can't grow back.

I used to think I could save him. I can't.

"Mitchell. I'm sorry." I can't hold the tears back anymore.

"Don't cry. It's alright. Sh."

"It's not."

He sighs. I bury my face in his shirt.

He pulls me close. " _I'm_ sorry."

"Stop apologizing. It doesn't help."

I curl up on the bed and cry extravagantly. No curse words are filthy enough. He sits beside me and strokes my hair. His hand shakes. The world doesn't care. No place is safe.

He's known all along. I've known too, but I've been ignoring it.

* * *

Left drifting after Lydia's sudden absence, Roger comes to see me. There's nothing he can say that doesn't make me hate him.

"Did you hear Lydia moved to Wales?" he asks me.

_I saved your life and you don't even know it. I could kill you myself, with nothing but my nails and teeth._

"I did hear that, yes."

"It's like she's evaporated! Do you think something could've happened to her? Josie, they think I've got something to do with it! Isn't that ridiculous? The police even brought me in for questioning. It took hours! It was so degrading. I felt like a zoo animal."

"Did you get jealous, Roger?"

"What, me? Why would I?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe because she left you? We both know Nick wasn't some minor fling. Had you ever been dumped before? Didn't it make you angry?"

"What are you implying? That I would harm her in any way? You know me better than that."

It's true. As much as he's disappointed me, he hasn't a violent bone in his body. Turns out I'm the violent one. And I'm not just playing at sadistic: I'd like to twist the knife a little more, and a little more still.

"No you're right. Maybe she doesn't want to be found. Perhaps she just wants nothing more to do with you. Still, I warned you about Nick. He could be up to all sorts of trouble."

"I should have taken him more seriously. I'm sorry I didn't believe you. You were right."

 _He's admitting it! I'm right and he's wrong!_  It's a miracle, but I can't even enjoy it. I want this conversation to be over.

"Roger, I'm sure she'll contact you when she's ready. Otherwise, it's her move, isn't it? You'll have to let her go. If I hear anything, I'll be sure to let you know. Now, I must go to work in a few minutes, but it's been lovely to see you. Sorry it couldn't be a longer visit."

After he leaves, I crawl into bed and lie perfectly still, as if crusted over with corruption that will foul the whole room if I loosen it from my skin. I didn't plan to be a murderer, or a liar.

* * *

Stephanie is fading. I know she hasn't gone. She still leaves hopeful cigarettes for me to find. I'll feel her touch my arm sometimes. She writes me notes: "The postman had a package addressed to you, but he went away without leaving a notice. Idiot." Or perhaps: "I said, this programme is rubbish. Why don't you read a book or something? Anything but this." Or simply: "The blue one. The yellow makes you look tired."

I'm having dreams where we're in bed and Mitchell dissolves, leaving only dusty sheets and a puff of cold air. Or I reach for him and my hand passes through a shape like a collapsing body, like a cylinder of old cigarette ash, and comes away coated in fine grey powder.

He doesn't understand what's changed. Stephanie is fading because I don't want to touch him. When I look at him, I only see ashes.

* * *

It will keep happening. We'll meet people, humans, vampires, ghosts, maybe even others, who knows , and they will be our friends. And one after another, they will be killed, or they will kill each other, or we will kill them, or they will kill us. Death after death after death. It won't stop. Perhaps some or even most of them will be justified. There will be piles of dust, corpses, blood, tears, empty dresses, lovers left behind who don't know what happened. And we will have to keep the secrets. I'll never stop resenting the lost friend, the missed opportunity, the boundary overstepped.

And meanwhile, I will grow older. My hair will turn grey, the crow's feet will deepen around my eyes, my joints will grow sore and stiff, my vision will weaken. I'll look like his auntie or his mum. I'll be sick and slow. I'll be a pervert of a different sort, a cradle robber.

Better if we end it before any of that.

* * *

Nothing really happens. I expected there to be some great shattering moment when the time became clear. Instead, it's week after week of teaching little girls and chainsmoking and plucking grey hairs and feeling sore when it rains. I grow sadder and sadder until simply looking at him makes me want to burst into tears. It's time to go.

* * *

Albert's friend has offered me a job with a dance company in Montreal. I'll be in a new country, full of strangers and possibilities. Today is the day. Mitchell takes both of my hands, squeezes them tightly and gives me a mournful smile. "This is the best thing. You're going to be fine."

Light slides through the curtains turning the air the color of honey. He puts on water for tea, leaving me sitting alone listening to the water running, doors opening and closing, mugs set down on the counter, steam rising from the kettle.

"Here. Hot tea, cold heart... Wait, that's not how it goes..."

I can't breathe. I want to take it all back. Someone has dug a hole in my chest and it's caving in. What will happen to him when I'm gone?

His fingers press into the back of my arms and his face is rough against my neck. "I'm sorry," I murmur into his ear. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Stay good or I'll be on the next plane home to come and... and whip you back into shape. You know how I am when I'm angry."

He smiles. "I'll bear that in mind."

I've been imagining this day since the beginning. Now that it's here, the inevitability washes over me like warm bath water. I'm okay.

There's nothing dangerous left between us, only the rendering of goodbyes: friction of skin against skin, kisses here and here and here, bodies arching and relaxing in familiar patterns. This smile, this closed eye, this birthmark, these fingertips, this rhythm. It's been months since we've been this close. I wish I could frame this moment and keep it behind glass.

His skin still tastes of honey and ashes, but his tears taste like mine: Salt. Just salt.

 


	16. Epilogue: Open to discussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends.

I know what will kill me, but it won't be today.

Early this morning, they siphoned away the fluid that had been collecting around my lungs and drowning me from inside. The beds of my fingernails turned from blue-grey back to a nice oxygenated pink. Breathing deeply, I can smell iodine and rubbing alcohol, with a barely perceptible whiff of excrement and a dash of cleaning fluid. Hospital air.

I've been fighting this cancer for seven years, three bouts of chemotherapy, four of radiation, and uncountable indignities, small and large. It's spread to my bones, my liver, and is beginning to claw away at my brain. I won't be myself for much longer.

At tables in back of the hospital cafe are sat the usual assortment of blue-scrubbed or labcoated caregivers. Nearer the windows are the patients in their thin faded gowns with the inadequate closures. Alongside them are their various concerned and civilian companions: parents, spouses, siblings, children, friends. The institutional fluorescent light makes everyone look bruised at the edges.

I'm here alone. Phillipe and I came back to England so I could die at home. How were we to know, devastated as we were by my terminal diagnosis, that he would go first, and with no warning, and so far from his dear Montreal. A massive stroke, the doctors said. He never felt a thing. I miss him terribly, the lucky sod. Since Philippe died I've been flying solo, taking the patient transport to appointments, or riding the bus when I'm able.

A dark young man slides into the chair beside me, offering coffee and a disarming smile.

"Hello Josie."

As Phillipe might have said,  _Tabernac!_  Loosely translated:  _holy shit!_

I'm looking at a face from forty years ago, unchanged, like a forgotten Polaroid snapshot stuck in an old book. Mitchell. I'm irresistibly drawn to him, still. It could never have worked out between us, but when we were good, we were very, very good. And he remembers how I take my coffee.

Had Mitchell surprised me yesterday, my reaction would likely have involved turning pale blue and gasping for air, interrupted by coughing and possibly toppling over. Today is a better day. We reach for one another, almost without volition, across decades and distance, my hand over his.

Since I came to Bristol, I've been hoping for and dreading this moment in equal measures. I'd nearly succeeded in convincing myself he was dead. I'm filled with complicated swirls of emotion: for the attraction that once pulled us together like two magnets; for my ordinary old-person wrinkles, liver spots, and for the much uglier ravages of cancer; for seeing him here, in this place, ageless and smiling and whole. I'm trying to ignore the low thrum of terror and outrage, the dull ache of an ugly wound healed over.

He's not living with vampires - I can tell by the state of his hair, which is truly disheveled in a manner that would make other vampires nervous. A familiar wariness, long buried but never gone, suppresses my urge to smooth down his unruly tousles and tangles. My, but he needs it. I survey the room, checking quickly for anyone watching us surreptitiously or lurking in a corner wearing oddly outdated clothes.

His mate finds an excuse to leave us. He's a rawboned, snub-nosed bloke in spectacles that seem far too scholarly for him. I read in him softness and fear, resigned desperation, a sense of being stretched too far, like an elastic band at its limit, and beneath it all: a stolid, certain decency. A nice boy. I'd trust him with my mum, or my bank deposit, or my car keys.

George is not a vampire, Mitchell says, but something else.

I look around worriedly, afraid someone's overheard. Considering how secretive the vampires are, you'd expect a bit of discretion for his friend.

We catch up. "Whatever happened to Stephanie?"

"She didn't stay. When you left, the door shut behind you, and she just... wasn't there anymore. Never even said goodbye."

"I'd hoped she'd forgive you one day. "

"Why would she? But... thanks."

The coffee is getting cold, but I drink it anyway.

"So... When did you come back here?"

"It didn't take long. All my close friends had left, stopped speaking to me, or were dead. Grant took over the office, and every few weeks a new crowd would come in. They were never much fun. I couldn't find another job that paid as well as the studio. What else could I do?"

He'd retreated to the safe and comfortable, the support system that was obliged to have him, despite his intentions of staying clean. He'd corresponded occasionally with James and Albert, who'd never mentioned him to me in their letters.

I tell him about Montreal, where the dark-haired French boys reminded me of him, about meeting Phillipe when I was 45 and had given up on love forever. I explain the duties of a professor's wife. I go on about the lovely markets and galleries in Montreal, the excellent delicatessens, and the viciously cold winters. Finally, I get to the story of our return to England, and Phillipe's sudden collapse. I tell him I'm dying.

His smile fades.

* * *

Mitchell rang me once, a month or two after the turn of the millennium, slurring and mumbling, nearly incoherent, saying he only needed to hear my voice, just once. I stammered something about a wrong number, hung up, and poured myself a stiff drink. After nearly thirty years, I couldn't speak to him; too much was different: I had a husband, a home. How would I have explained him to Philippe? If I couldn't be honest, I didn't want to tell him at all. Omissions are easier than lies.

* * *

I shouldn't have agreed to this meeting. I know what to expect, more or less. How could Mitchell forget that the last time I saw Herrick, he gave instructions to kill me?

The moment I see those icy blue eyes I remember that this creature is more reptile than human. I will never want what he wants. He's all benign and reasonable now, like a great uncle indulging his favorite nephew, but to him I'm merely a to-do item on a long and sordid list of tasks to be dispatched.

My attention falters at some points, but Herrick seems oblivious, his face flushed a very unvampiric, enthusiastic pink. In a mind-numbing lecture touching on Darwin and Rousseau, on Roman history and Richard Dawkins, he lays out his grand, crackpot scheme.  The gist is this: the vampires are planning to take over. At this phase, they want skilled recruits. To that end, are rescuing the best and brightest from certain death and bringing them into the fold. He actually calls it that. A "fold". Vampires are all innocent lambs, I suppose.

I emerge from the meeting with Herrick in a state of near panic. Being recruited could sound like salvation to the confused, frightened and dying, but it's a ghoulish bait and switch: it's more like body-snatching. These are carrion-eaters preying on the sick and desperate, on civilians who've no idea what it means to become a vampire. Although I've had nausea for weeks, in the past hour it's increased by at least an order of magnitude.

* * *

We walk along the channel, past floating bars and dockside cafes, where water birds scavenge for leavings. The gulls are sometimes bold enough to snatch food right out of your hand. The hospital building looms grey over the water, and its black wrought-iron gates and a century of grime remind me of old black and white postcards, the kind you see in secondhand shops with faded messages penciled on the backs.

"I know it's a lot to think about. "

Mitchell's eyes are huge with hope and apprehension. He lights a cigarette and reflexively offers me one, which I decline.

"So... If I... Would I get better?"

"You'd be instantly healed."

"But I wouldn't be young... I'd be like this? With you?"

"Forever."

I am actually at a loss for words. Flattered. Heartbroken.

From a vampire, that's almost a marriage proposal. It's out of the question, of course, but I need to be gentle with him. I owe him that much.

If he's carried a torch for me all this time, he's misguided: I nearly destroyed him. I didn't intend to, but I was young and selfish. I left him, alone, hungry, belonging nowhere, to go on endlessly, knowing exactly what had been lost. Humans won't accept him and vampires don't understand him. He must have been desperately lonely, remembering that glimpse of another life, out of reach.

This plan of Herrick's must have seemed to him like a bridge between the two. I'm sorry to tell him it isn't.

"You're offering something you have no right to. Mortality is part of being human. You can't take that away from people."

"But there would be no more death or disease. Places like this will become museums. And it's all voluntary. "

Have they ever got him brainwashed. He's like one of those polite, well-dressed young evangelicals who come to your door with tracts and pocket bibles. The members seem sincere, but the leaders are inevitably revealed to be thieves, frauds and child molesters.

"Stop the spin. People think they want eternal life, but that's not what you're giving them."

Countless patients have passed through this place, suffering from cancer and consumption and gangrene and polio, bleeding from bomb blasts and car wrecks and bullet wounds. Thousands upon thousands of stories of the thousands who've died here, stories they would render obsolete. Instead of life having its arc: birth, love, challenge, pain, joy, loss, death, the vampires would have only stasis. It's a repudiation of everything we were.

I never wanted to live in that world, and Mitchell knows it. He wanted to be in mine.

"You've got it all wrong. What Herrick is planning is not evolution. It's a con. The Mitchell I knew would never have dreamed-"

"-I wanted to save you."

"No, I don't think it was that. You knew I would say no, didn't you? You needed to hear it."

He drops the end of his cigarette and lights another. This time he doesn't offer me one.

"I don't know what I wanted. I thought I could help people."

"Like the vampires helped you?"

On the water, the gulls are squabbling and squawking over a scrap floating on the surface. Mitchell just watches them and smokes. His face is blank and unreadable.

"Do your friends know about this?"

His prolonged silence explains everything. They can't help him if he won't let them in. I wonder if in the past forty years, Mitchell has trusted anyone.

* * *

_Well, shit._

No longer a glamorous couple, us, just two long-ago acquaintances, practically strangers. We're not even on the same side anymore.

He scowls into the sun, and it's hard to tell if he's ashamed or just disappointed. Late autumn wind gusts in our faces, musses our hair and blows a chill through my clothes. I'd forgotten how lost, how mutable he is, taking his guidance from whomever is closest, becoming whatever he's expected to be, keeping his thoughts to himself. I only hope I've reached him.

* * *

I can't let them destroy everything. Even if I won't live to see it happen.

* * *

Mitchell's friend George is flirting awkwardly with the little nurse, who seems to be enjoying it. Perhaps he's grateful for the interruption.

I have my doubts about him: he's not weak, exactly, but he lacks tensile strength. He's also far too young, unfamiliar with vampires, and completely out of his depth. But there's no one else.

Without preamble, I explain the whole sordid plot to him, and Mitchell's pivotal role in opening the floodgates. George's eyes widen with horror.

" _Christ_." It's the first word I've heard him say without a stammer.

* * *

I don't see well at dusk, and all the excitement made me clumsy and distracted. While climbing the short flight of steps up to my flat, I take one the wrong way, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground.

As I lie sprawled in an undignified heap on the steps, bruises swelling at my hip and elbow, Stephanie's image swims into view, her white blouse falling in elaborate folds and shadows under the streetlamp. She perches on the step beside me, her torso at eye level.

"Hey Josie. I thought I'd drop in to check on you. I hear you'll be joining us soon."

I'm not even surprised. "It's nice to see you Stephanie. I've been thinking about you a lot lately. Every time I go out, I take a long look in the mirror and think, what would Stephanie say about this outfit? If I think you wouldn't like it, I change. I still value your input."

"Hmm. My input? I'd say you need your roots touched up."

"Thanks. I feel better now." I pull myself up to sit beside her on the stair. "You must know what's happening then."

"How could I not? It's my job." She gives a little annoyed snort. "Still."

"You're like my guardian angel."

She shrugs. "Or something. I'm your conscience, say. You did right to try and stop Mitchell. What he's up to now is rather extreme, but it's not the first stupid thing he's done. Recently." She narrows her eyes at me. "You don't still have feelings for him, do you?"

"I don't know. Yes. Kind of. It's complicated. He's changed."

"Has he? I don't see it. Still a murderous git, if you ask me." She examines her chipped manicure. "Your husband, er, Phil, isn't it? I like him. Nice broad shoulders. Good sense of humor. Patient. Sensible. Not bad to look at either."

My heart nearly stops right then. "How do you know him? Have you seen him? Is he all right?"

"He misses you. He asked me to tell you. And to do this." With a crooked finger she makes a gentle scratching motion twice on the back of my hand, leaving a prickly chill on my skin. It was our signal, when we needed to leave somewhere, to tell the other it was time. It got us out of innumerable dull dinners, faculty events, cocktail parties.

I miss him too. Like a lost limb.

"He's really there?"

"Sure looked like it. Six foot or so, grey hair that needs a trim, pornstache?" She holds a finger under her nose, demonstrating. I always did want him to shave that thing, but he wouldn't. It tickled. "Sort of a weird French accent? He said you never learned to cook anything that wasn't from a box or a tin, is that true?"

"Hah! Montreal has very good takeaway. Now, Bristol... is getting better. And how are you? It's been so long."

"Not for me it hasn't. Time is acting rather squishy. Last thing I remember is watching Mitchell mope around after you left. He asked me... me!" (and here she gives me a baffled look and shakes her head like she's trying to clear water from her ears) "... what he was supposed to do next, but obviously I hadn't a clue. I left him there listening to Hank Williams and getting drunk with Grant. Really not my scene."

It was ridiculous to think she might have forgiven him.

"But things are okay. Not much happens, and I don't mind. We play shuffleboard. We watch football. We can eat or drink if we want, not like here, but it doesn't have an effect on us. And I can smoke again, thank god! Sometimes we see old friends. Sometimes we get special assignments to muck around with the living, but mostly it's nice and dull. I think you'll like it."

I'm not sure how to respond to that. I think my feelings are hurt.

An ambulance arrives. They are taking me back to hospital for observation, probably because they saw me talking to someone who wasn't there.

Stephanie waves and blows kisses while they carry me away. "I'm glad you made it this long. You've had a good run. See you soon!"

* * *

"Do you have a minute?"

"Oh my god, George. What happened? Are you okay?"

He's standing at my bedside, hollow-eyed, exhausted, his shirt smeared with blood. Did he see me come in last night?

"I am. Mitchell's not. Herrick tried to kill him."

"Tried, but didn't?"

"Not quite. He-" George, obviously no brawler, makes a limp-wristed stabbing motion. A stake then. "Mitchell's in a bad way, nearly bled out. He said something about needing, erm, living blood, but I didn't really follow. All I know is, he can't get up, he can barely talk! They're trying to help him, but the longer he's in here the more questions they'll ask. It's really, really, really not good." His words come faster and faster, and his voice goes up an octave to emerge as practically a squeak. I'm reminded of a 33 record played at 45.

"Slow down, slow down. Tell me what's going on. Why did Herrick attack him?"

"Something really spun him. After you told me what was going on, we paid a visit to the vampires' 'lair'," (ironic air quotes here), "and I don't know what they were going to do, but we found that he... needed rescuing. They put up a good fight, but we overwhelmed them with our great powers of- of- running away. Herrick came after him at home, rudely interrupting what was supposed to be a very private dramatic moment. He only just missed. The vampires seem quite emphatically to want him dead."

"We aren't going to let that happen, are we? Where is he now?"

* * *

He looks awful: blue-grey skin like a dead person's, dark purplish-brown shadows under his eyes. The head of the bed is angled so he can sit up, but it's not clear if he'd have the strength to do it on his own.

"What happened? I thought you were vampire employee of the month."

"I had a change of heart."

His voice has an unfamiliar hesitation, as if he's gathering strength before each word.

He says the cold centrifuged blood they're giving him doesn't help. I don't need much imagination to work out what he means.

* * *

Stephanie once asked me,  _drug overdose, Mitchell, or bus_? She never rated cancer. Where would cancer fall on the Stephanie scale?

As someone whose next stop is to be hospice, I know  _my_  answer. And I have an idea: he would get better, stop Herrick's plot, and set me free. He can resolve to quit blood ever after. Just not quite yet. Bureaucrats would call it a " _win-win_ ".

* * *

Without asking, I climb up beside him. There's enough room for both of us. His arm wraps around me, the most natural thing in the world.

I point at my breastbone. "Put your hand here." He does. A slight buzzing vibration seems to emanate from his fingertips, and I recall the weird bluish glow that would sometimes arc between us, and the thick calm that would follow. Today, malignant cells prickle under his hand like coarse sandpaper pressed against my skin. His hand recoils, but I hold it there.

"Oh. That's really... awful. " He trails off, sympathy and sorrow and regret in his voice. "Fucking cancer. I'm sorry."

"So am I. And I'm done with it. No more."

"I hear you. I don't want to be here any more than you do."

"Speak for yourself. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be."

"Please don't say that."

"I  _want_  to say it. You know, you have work to do, and I'm going to help you do it. And your friend George wants you back, and I bet that pretty little ghost over there does too. Yes, I see her. Did you think I wouldn't?" A thought crosses my mind unbidden. "You didn't kill her, did you?"

" _Of course not!_  That's my housemate Annie." His scowl lacks vitriol. All he can manage is to exhale in an offended sort of way.

"Sorry. Anyhow, you can't deny it's a fair question." The frown remains. "Are you pouting? Stop it." I nudge him with my elbow, which makes him wince. "Oh, I am sorry. But listen: Your friend? Your  _ghost_  friend? She's plain as day, without any help from you. Don't you understand what that means?" I look pointedly in her direction. "Hello, there!"

She gives an awkward little wave. "Erm, hi?" She's dark-skinned, dressed in a modern style, and has on those awful puffy knitted boots the young girls like to wear these days. I wonder what killed her.

With some difficulty, Mitchell turns toward her. A tentative note creeps into his voice, like when he spoke to Stephanie, as if addressing an invalid or a child, but there's affection too, and familiarity. "Annie, would you mind..."

For a split-second, her eyes widen, then she recovers. "Ah.  _Oh._  I'll... I'll be off, then." Her voice only quivers a little.

"Hey? Don't worry, okay?"

She frowns and shakes her considerable dark curls. "I'm going to worry. Just... I don't want to know, all right? One of us will be right out there."

He nods, closes his eyes and doesn't answer. Annie dissolves, leaving a chilly, empty place in the air.

"Your friends are so young, I can't get over it. But I'm glad you found them. "

* * *

There is no later. There is only now.

"Josie, please don't ask me to do this."

"I'm just giving you something I don't need anymore."

"This isn't about saving the world from Herrick, is it? This is about you."

"Herrick wants you to recruit thousands of people! And what difference does it make? It's both."

But it  _is_  about me. Am I using him? Am I being selfish? When he says it "pushes him further and further from humanity," I don't understand what he means. Or perhaps I don't care. Everyone has free will, even vampires. He can be cruel, or he can be merciful. That's the real choice.

"You won't hurt me. I've had very good drugs."

"Yeah, nice. Very alluring."

"I'm not trying to allure, I'm trying to be practical here. And calling in a favor."

"What?"

"Don't you remember? You promised that when the time came-"

" _What?_  Oh, do you mean...  _Jesus Christ!_  That had  _nothing_  to do with this.  _Nothing._  Stop it. Hush."

"No. You've never been able to shut me up and you sure as hell aren't starting now."

It's been years and years since anyone kissed me to stop me talking.

* * *

We rest and reminisce. We revisit old treasured memories: chocolate and cigarettes, paint and music. Neither of us is quite ready to say goodbye. Morning becomes afternoon. Time is growing short.

"What  _is_  your friend George? He said he was 'something else'."

A glimmer of an amused smile. "He is."

"You've spilled most of the beans, you may as well spill the rest."

"Werewolf." Before I can say anything, he pokes a finger at my ribs, already sore from coughing. "Don't laugh."

"I wouldn't dream of it. He seems like a nice young man - a bit excitable, perhaps, but very, very solid. I might recall you saying something about werewolves once, but you never seemed inclined to be friends with one."

"I saved him from some vampires. I look out for him."

"Is that so? He appears to do a fair amount of looking out for you. "

"He's done his best."

"I don't suppose he can make  _you_  look out for you."

"Jesus. Give it a rest. I've lived without your help for a long time now." His tone softens. "I'll be okay."

"Will you ever forgive me?"

"For what? Josie, you needed to go. You told me: getting saved isn't a one-time deal, it's over and over. And you'd reached your limit. I always understood that. It's fine."

* * *

_We were only passing strangers before. Now we meet._

_It hurts, but there's no fear. White noise in my eyes and ears like snow on an old black and white television, shapes forming in the clouds, pressure and cold gentle hands growing stronger more insistent, a kiss, pulling and drawing at my throat like wires through my veins pushing the cold down inside, static signal hissing and humming. Your hand threading through mine. It's all right. Don't stop. Don't stop._

_I am full of nectar like a flower. Drink me. The sweetness bubbles up and runs down my flanks, my shoulders, under my breasts, sticky and fragrant. Drink me. It pools underneath me, its aroma like honey and jasmine filling the air and wafting into the hallway. The bedsheets are soaked. I'm an uncorked bottle. Drink me._

_He kisses my neck, drenched in hot sugary spray. It drips down his cheeks and I take his face in my hands and smear the juice into his hair, let him lick it from my fingers and put my mouth on his so we can share our insides with each other, bathed in sweetness. My heart races with the effort: it's hard work. We lie bathed in syrup and our outsides are our insides and every surface meets every other, sliding wet and silky and close and naked, sharing one skin._

_Teeth like metal. Your hand curls into my hair. I give you this. I give you this. Heat dissipating. Dark. Safety is a lie. Connection is an illusion. Cold. Hacking and gasping. I can't stay_.

Something damp on my lips, medicinal and sweet and full of bubbles that burst like pinpricks. "Please. Don't go."

"I'm not leaving you. Sh." Morphine leaves a bitter aftertaste. I don't need any more. Nothing hurts.

"Liar," he says, from very far away.

_Listen for me. I'll always be there._

_Stretching before us is an expanse of nothing. Red dissolving into grey, into black._

I watch him lift me from the clean white bed and arrange my body in the chair beside it. His face is clean. There's no blood anywhere, nothing spilled, nothing out of place. I'm not drowning anymore, not cold, not tired, not dying.

_Thank you._

* * *

"That was a generous thing you did. We all appreciate it."

"Annie, right?"

"I want you to know, he's not alone, he's with us. My unfinished business... it got finished, but I couldn't leave him like... like he was."

"Do you plan to stay here now?"

"I'm not sure. If I can. Will you?"

"Nope. I'm all done."

"Oh, that's... too bad," she says, a bit too brightly.

"Don't worry dear, I'm glad to be on my way. But be careful. Even in the best of times, a vampire needs more than you can give."

"We're so grateful. And don't worry. We've got this." She tugs at his elbow. "Come on Mitchell, time to go home."

There's a door that wasn't here before. I can't see into its high window, but a yellowish light is shining through. Something warm and inviting must lie on the other side, a comfortable room with a fire burning, shelves full of books, overstuffed furniture. Perhaps Philippe is there, sitting in his battered old reclining chair, smoking his pipe and watching the hockey game. A wisp of vanilla-scented tobacco smoke curls under the door. I'll be there soon, love.


End file.
